


Ashes and Dust

by MirrorMystic



Series: Among Eagles [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/F, Gen, Multi, Space Opera, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 08:00:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17422022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: A Breach has opened among the windswept dunes of Calcian, in a sprawling hive city known as Shepherd’s Rock. When the crew of the Sparrow gets sent to investigate, they find themselves in the middle of a war-- between Calcian’s poor, and the wealthy elite.The class divide has never been more stark-- or more literal-- than the force field that divides the inner ring of Shepherd’s Rock from the rest of the city around it. Within that innermost ring, The Oasis, the city’s upper crust live in blissful ignorance while the rest of the populace are ravaged by poverty, addiction, and Calcian’s constant, vicious sandstorms.But not everything is as it seems. In this city of secrets, there are heroes on both sides.Daemons, too…





	Ashes and Dust

**Author's Note:**

> I started this doc before Christmas, and it's finally, *finally* done. 'The Blood of the Covenant' may have been the finale of that particular story arc, but the crew of Order asset Sparrow have plenty more stories to tell, and I hope you'll enjoy this one!

~*~  
  
The sun never set on Calcian.  
  
Not in the summer, at any rate. Not this far north. For four long months, the sun would almost, but not quite, set in the sky. In the winter, you’d get the opposite-- four months of pale gloom at what should have been dawn, the sun looming tantalizingly close to the horizon, only for it to pull away and plunge the city into another winter’s worth of polar night.  
  
There was something there, surely. About the duality of light and dark. Some sort of… poetry, perhaps.  
  
That, or Maxwell was simply spacing out on the train.  
  
Maxwell pulled off his glasses, shined them on his jacket, and placed them back on his nose. Outside his window, the clean, sleek lines of the Oasis whipped past-- the rounded cubes of offices and apartment buildings in neat little rows. Stark white, accented with blue and green. A vision of paradise. It looked like a dream; a miracle. Like someone had actually managed to reach into Calcian’s sun-scoured wastes and pull the city of Shepherd’s Rock up out of the sand.  
  
It was almost beautiful. It was almost civilized.  
  
And, reflected in the train window, Professor Brennan Maxwell wore the face of someone who almost believed it.  
  
Almost. But not quite.  
  
Maxwell sighed, aimlessly combing his fingers through his short, pointed beard, wondering how much of his life he’d wasted simply letting his mind wander on his commute. Surely there were better things to do on the train than watching the world flit past, or admiring your own reflection in the window.  
  
Maxwell was handsome, once. Some, himself included, would argue he was handsome still. Gray-haired, gray-bearded, gray-eyed, with a dove-gray three-piece suit to match. He looked almost grandfatherly. Almost, but not quite. Perhaps not a grandfather. Perhaps a grand-uncle, one who never married, who always had a glint in his eye and a new story to tell.  
  
There was a chime overhead. Maxwell exhaled, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet.  
  
Maxwell stepped onto the platform, jostled by the tidal wave of people disembarking and eager to get home. In one hand, he carried a suitcase; in the other, a cane of dark, lacquered wood, engraved with twin serpents coiling up the haft. The serpents’ eyes glimmered with an eerie green light, one that was almost like cut emeralds. Almost. But not quite.  
  
The Shield shone above him, projected from the spire at the city’s heart. A pillar of light shone up from the Shield Pylon before fanning outwards into a dome, locking into the relay track set above the massive Oasis Gate facility. On the inner surface of the Shield, a holographic projection bathed the city in a bloody sunset, one that was beautiful and blatantly false, given the time of year. But, Maxwell, supposed, everyone in this city seemed to enjoy playing pretend.  
  
A hostess was waiting at the edge of the platform to bid him farewell. A pretty young thing, with too big a smile and too short a skirt.  
  
“I hope you enjoyed your stay in the Oasis. See you soon!” she chirped.  
  
Maxwell gave the girl a friendly pat on the arm. His fingers clipped through the girl’s projected form and thumped against the chassis of the faceless security drone beneath.  
  
Maxwell stepped through a waist-high strip of yellow light that blinked green as he went past. He was just another pedestrian, on yet another evening exodus of the working class from the inner city. The bloody red of Calcian’s false sunset faded away behind him, leaving only a trail of blinking yellow lights lining the interior of the tunnel. The space between the Inner and Outer Oasis Gates swelled with voices echoing in the confined space and the singular tapping of an engraved cane against the stone tiles.  
  
_“You are now exiting the Shielded Zone,”_ came a voice on the overhead speaker, artificially tuned to ‘soothing’. _“Please be aware of environmental hazards. Proceed at your own risk. We hope you enjoyed your stay in the Oasis. You are now exiting the Shielded Zone…”_ _  
__  
_ The crowd was so set in their routine that they collectively paused on the threshold of the Outer Oasis Gate, savoring one last moment of cool, climate-controlled air.  
  
They breathed deep, and took the plunge.  
  
The world beyond the wall slammed into the crowd like a freight train of heat and wind. They scattered like rats, bags clutched to their chests, ducking their heads against the gale. But Maxwell lingered on the steps of the Gate, the dark cloak around his shoulders billowing behind him, gazing out at the roaring sandstorm gathering on the horizon.  
  
Shield Garrison troopers stood sentinel beside him in dark visors and rust-red armor, sandy brown cloaks snapping in the gale.  
  
A holographic welcome-bot facing inward. A company of armed guards facing out.  
  
Maxwell sniffed in disdain.  
  
Yellow lights flashed in the gloom, warning the populace that a dust warning was in effect, urging everyone to get inside. A sandstorm was rising in the distance, an ominous cloud of darkness backlit by Calcian’s bloody red sun. The sun seemed close to setting, but that was as close as it was going to get-- for the rest of the summer, the sun would never quite reach the horizon. The eerie, restless months of polar daylight were upon them. No sun. No stars.  
  
Only, tonight, there _was_ a star, shooting across the blinding red sky. It was a ship, a glint of light through the gathering clouds. Maxwell watched, intrigued, as it came in for a landing only a few streets away, just outside the shining dome of the Shield.  
  
Maxwell reached up and tugged the hem of his cloak up over his mouth and nose. He struck his cane against the ground, emerald light spiraling up his fingers and glinting around his eyes.  
  
“Welcome to Calcian,” he muttered, amused. “Don’t forget to wear a mask...”  
  
~*~  
  
Sergeant Bruno Castor, Planetary Defense, stood at his post with his rifle slung, bored out of his skull. The dust was up, and the storm alarms were sounding. Flashing yellow lights blinked on and off in the smothering dust cloud, artificial stars in an unnatural night.  
  
He was a member of the Calcian 54th “Paladins”, the PDF regiment assigned to Shepherd’s Rock to serve as security and law enforcement. Aegis Company, his company, was the unit dedicated to guarding the Oasis Gates.  
  
It was a shit detail. It meant standing just outside the Shielded Zone and sticking your face into every sandstorm. It meant having to keep unauthorized wretches from entering the Oasis, no matter how bad the storm got. It meant having to let _some_ lucky bastards into the Oasis, who only got authorization because they knew the right guy, or paid the right guy, or fucked the right guy.  
  
It meant, when the dust was up, you couldn’t see a damn thing.  
  
Castor blew out a sigh, muffled by the interior of his helm. He reached up and wiped his gloved fingers against his visor, clearing off the sheen of accumulated dust and grit. The streak he left on the molded armaglass acquired a new film of dust in a manner of seconds.  
  
Shadows moved in the storm. The trooper beside him, nursing a caffeine headache, raised his rifle in alarm. Castor clapped his hand on the trooper’s weapon and warily pushed his aim down.  
  
“Who goes there?” Castor called out.  
  
The figures emerged from the storm. Under the flickering yellow of the storm warning lights, they resolved into a duo-- two women, arm in arm. One wore a handsome, well-tailored suit in a deep, dark forest green. The other, an elegant black dress with ruffled skirts, trimmed in white. Neither of them wore breather masks. Rather, the woman in black held a parasol over her shoulder-- one that shone with a faint white light, and projected a shielded bubble of clean air around herself and her partner.  
  
“Good evening, officer,” said the woman in green. “We would like to enter the Oasis, please.”  
  
Castor glanced to the trooper beside him, somehow grasping their shared confusion despite their visors hiding their faces. But this was hardly the first time he’d given this speech.  
  
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Castor said, his foul-weather poncho flapping against his rust-red combat plate, “but there is no entry to the Oasis permitted after curfew, and especially not while there’s a dust warning in effect. So, unless you’ve got an appointment with the governor himself--”  
  
“As a matter of fact,” said the woman in black, “we do.”  
  
Her eyes flashed. In the blinking yellow of the storm sirens, Castor saw the badge like a brooch at the woman’s neck, and the one pinned to the lapels of her partner’s suit. A crescent, an orb, and three diamonds.    
  
Castor went pale. He reached up to his helmet and keyed in his comm.  
  
“Open the gate.”  
  
~*~  
  
The sandstorm raged, drowning out the blaring alarms. The wind shrieked and howled, grit nicking and scraping at the walls. And from her seat atop a storage crate in the Sparrow’s cargo hold, Lily added her voice to the sandstorm’s wailing, whistling long and low.  
  
“Damn, would you listen to that shit?” Lily mused. “You must feel right at home.”  
  
“Hey, man,” Kit chided, smiling. “At least on Hypnos, I lived inside the shield.”  
  
Kit had her feet up on a stack of ration crates, her head on Lily’s lap. Across the deck, Morgan and Shanti were digging out the Sparrow’s foul weather gear, pulling out goggles, breathers, and ponchos. The mission team was supposed to be getting ready to venture out into the storm.  
  
Naturally, that meant the girls were procrastinating and having a cuddle.  
  
“Desert planets. It’s always desert planets,” Lila pouted, leaning against Lily’s back and affectionately bonking their heads together. “You never take me anywhere nice.”  
  
“This is an Order ship, Lila,” Lily chided. “Anywhere we go, it’s ‘cuz we’re tracking down criminals.”  
  
“People can do crimes in nice places,” Lila insisted. “How about a tropical beach planet? That’d be nice.”  
  
“A beach mission?” Kit teased. “What’s next, we hit up a hot spring?”  
  
“That sounds good, too!” Lila chirped.  
  
“I’d be down,” Lily chuckled.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
Vincent called out from the balcony above, before dropping down and _almost_ sticking the landing. Kit obligingly cushioned his fall with a conjured breeze, saving him from bashing his head open on the deck. It didn’t save him from falling flat on his face and then springing back to his feet, trying to play it off like it didn’t happen.  
  
“You guys aren’t even dressed yet?” Vincent balked. “What, are you too busy cuddling?”  
  
“Yes,” Lily said bluntly.  
  
“Yes,” Lila chimed in.  
  
“Yeah, man,” Kit shrugged, and smirked. “You’re just jealous.”  
  
Vincent rolled his eyes. He popped the collar of his suit with a huff, the effect rather lessened by the foul weather cape draped over his arms. “Come on, guys. I’ve got a contact waiting for us in the city, and the clock’s ticking.”  
  
“Alright, alright…” Lily sighed. She bumped her head back against Lila’s, like a cat, before reluctantly sitting up. Kit, meanwhile, stayed right where she was, laying on Lily’s lap.  
  
“Kit?” Lily asked.  
  
Kit waved her hand dismissively. “I can be ready to go in, like, two seconds.”  
  
“Too bad you can’t get dressed in a flash like Aabha and the twins,” Vincent mused.  
  
“Wanna bet?” Kit grinned. “Check _this_ out!”  
  
Kit spun her badge around her fingers, before cocking her hip out and clicking it onto her belt. She pressed a finger to the orb in the center of the Order crest.  
  
Power resonated through the cargo bay. An otherworldly breeze swept through the room, cut through with ribbons of sandy yellow and luminous gold.  
  
Kit emerged from the teleport flare clad in her sleek, armored catsuit, her paired sheaths at her shoulder, Syl’s long coat flapping in the breeze.  
  
Lily crossed her arms, shaking her head fondly.  
  
“...You _still_ don’t have an ass,” Lily smirked.  
  
“Fuck you, Lily.”  
  
“Promise?”  
  
Lila jumped up and gasped, clapping her hands in delight.  
  
“Oh! Oh! It finally happened!” Lila squealed. “Just like you’ve wanted all along! You can finally henshin!”  
  
“See? _Lila_ gets me!” Kit grinned, and high-fived her. “That’s right, I can finally go full magical girl! Not that I’m gonna, like, strike a pose or shout a catchphrase _every_ time I warp my suit on. I’m not _that_ big a dork.”  
  
“What, you’re not like _me_?” Aabha teased.  
  
Kit’s eyes lit up, She looked up, found Aabha on the balcony above. She reached out, and Aabha jumped, a magicked wind easing her down into Kit’s arms. They spun and laughed together, beaming, nuzzling into one another.  
  
“Hey, you,” Kit murmured with the utmost fondness.  
  
“Hey, you,” Aabha cooed.  
  
Kit curled her arms around Aabha’s neck, while Aabha’s hands lingered on Kit’s hips. Aabha playfully poked her fingers through Kit’s belt loops, drumming her fingertips against her waist, brushing against the Order crest hanging from Kit’s belt.  
  
“So,” Aabha smiled, “ _this_ is new.”  
  
“I’m moving up in the world, don’tcha know,” Kit teased. “Finally got Shanti to sync up my badge with my armory locker, just like yours. Now the two of us can be ready for action in a snap.”  
  
Kit snapped her fingers. Aabha giggled.  
  
“Thanks, Shanti~” she sang.  
  
Their eyes met-- warm amber and stark crimson. They leaned in close…  
  
..and subsequently bonked their heads on the floating plasteel chassis of Shanti’s transcriber drone. They looked up, words appearing above their heads in orange hololithic light.  
  
_You’re welcome_ , Shanti typed. _But keep teleporting inside the Sparrow and I_ ** _will_** _shove you out an airlock._  
  
Aabha laughed, a sound that was probably a contender for the best sound Kit had ever heard. But across the cargo bay, Shanti wasn’t laughing. She met Kit’s eyes, serious as always. She pointed to her eyes with two fingers, then pointed those two fingers at Kit.  
  
Kit snorted. She didn’t know sign language, but she was pretty sure she knew what _that_ meant.  
  
Shanti’s drone whizzed across the cargo bay, its little anti-gravity drive warbling as it went. It lingered, perched like a bird just over Shanti’s shoulder. Morgan, beside her, stepped forward, clapping his hands.  
  
“Alright, everyone, bring it in!” Morgan called. It turned out, Morgan did a pretty good impression of someone who could command authority, despite being tied with Lila for shortest and most baby-faced of those assembled.  
  
“Syl and Tabby aren’t yet back from their handshake with Calcian’s planetary governor at city hall,” Morgan explained, “but I doubt they’ll mind us getting a head start on our investigation. Before we head out, I just want to go over a few ground rules. Number one: everyone who sets foot outside the Sparrow must be wearing foul weather gear. No exceptions.”  
  
Morgan paused. The sandstorm howled, scraping and scratching at the walls of the Sparrow’s boarding hatch.  
  
“...As you can hear…” Morgan continued, “the weather can get particularly foul here on Calcian. Perhaps unnaturally so. Preliminary scans have been… inconclusive, thanks to the weather. But the Order has reason to believe that a Breach has opened somewhere in this city.”  
  
Aabha furrowed her brow in concern. Just behind her, Lily nudged Kit in the ribs.  
  
“...That’s… bad, yeah?” Lily whispered.  
  
“Yeah, that sounds bad,” Kit muttered.  
  
Morgan waved the thought away. “Now, let’s stow that talk for now. I don’t want to be The Boy Who Cried Daemon without finding any solid evidence first. For the moment, Order asset Sparrow is only here on Calcian to investigate the spread of a drug going by the name ‘black sand’, which may or may not be linked to the distortion surrounding the city.”  
  
_That distortion has been fucking with the Sparrow’s sensors ever since we broke atmo,_ Shanti said. _The Sparrow’s broadcasting range is being gutted by these sandstorms, no matter whether they’re occult or mundane. That’s going to make going ashore… complicated._ _  
__  
_ “That means limited comms,” Morgan said. “That means no control room support.”  
  
_That means no teleport sync through the sandstorm,_ Shanti warned, _so if you need anything in this armory, and I mean anything, you better have it on you when you step out that door._ _  
_  
“Don’t worry, Chief,” Kit grinned. She looped an arm around Aabha and Lily’s waists and tugged them closer. “I’ve got everything I need, right here.”  
  
“Kit!” Aabha hissed, her cheeks warm.  
  
Lily chuckled. “I’m touched and all, but I could still use those goggles.”  
  
“Fair point,” Morgan said. He opened up the crate at his feet and started passing out bundled packs of foul weather gear. “Everyone gear up, please. Goggles, breather, poncho. No exceptions. If this is just an ordinary sandstorm, we could do without getting our faces scoured off.”  
  
“And if this _isn’t_ an ordinary sandstorm?” Aabha ventured.  
  
“We’ll deal with that when we get there,” Morgan said firmly. “Chief?”  
  
_Masks on!_ Shanti signed. She reached for the console beside her, and pounded on the hatch release.  
  
The Sparrow’s cargo bay doors slid open, unleashing a blistering gale into the ship and instantly coating the cargo deck with a layer of dust and grit. The boarding ramp extended, dropping down into Calcian’s dirt with a gentle thump immediately lost to the howling storm.  
  
“Everyone stay close and stay together. We won’t have a spotter in the control room looking at a map for us, but our badges are still synced and will mark our positions relative to each other. Set your comms to short-range, highest gain,” Morgan ordered. “Kit, you’ve got the sharpest eyes, so I want you in front. Lila, stay close to Aabha and your sister. Chief Bryant will cover our backs. Is that understood?”  
  
The team chorused affirmatives. Morgan nodded.  
  
“Our contact, Mr. Capello?”  
  
“Dylan Harrell,” Vincent replied. “He knows his way around the local dealers. He could be our ticket to finding out where the black sand is coming from. He’s ex-Syndicate, or so I heard.”  
  
“There’s a lot of those, nowadays,” Lila smiled, bumping an elbow against Lily’s. “Thanks to you.”  
  
“Thanks to _us_ ,” Lily grinned.  
  
“Let’s move out!” Morgan called. He ushered the team down the boarding ramp and headlong into the scouring gale, their foul-weather cloaks snapping in the stiff breeze.  
  
The rest of the mission team vanished almost immediately, becoming mere silhouettes in the storm. Lily reached out, groping, and took Lila’s hand with a squeeze.  
  
“You know, it’ll probably be safer on the ship,” Lily said.  
  
“Nowhere’s safer than here with you,” Lila insisted.  
  
“Not if we’re walking into a daemon storm,” Lily chuckled. She squeezed Lila’s hand, and then reached up, feeling along her arm until she felt the familiar shape of her derringer, tucked away inside Lila’s sleeve.  
  
Lily exhaled. “Just stay where I can see you, okay?”  
  
“Of course,” Lila nodded. “If you can even see a thing…”  
  
A shadow emerged from the storm behind them. Lila tensed, and Lily squeezed her hand, the two of them breathing out a sigh when it turned out to just be Shanti, bringing up the rear, her rifle like a yoke over her shoulders. She silently beckoned the Chase sisters forward. They turned, and trudged, headlong into the storm…  
  
“Everyone stay close, and keep moving!” Morgan cried out.  
  
“Vince!” Aabha called. “Do you know where this Harrell guy lives?”  
  
“Nope!” Vincent called back. “But I know who he’s fuckin’. And she’s _right_ around the corner…”  
  
~*~  
  
They say that Calcian was founded by a shepherd.  
  
They say that, long ago, when Calcian was young, it was still lush and green, and the fields were filled with livestock. One young shepherd, his feet sore and tired of herding sheep from pasture to pasture, tripped over a stone, and decided, “here, right here, is where I shall build my city”.  
  
Having seen the world outside the Shield, Syl and Crane found it hard to believe that Calcian had ever been anything resembling ‘lush and green’. But with the false night sky and verdant horizon projected across the interior of the Shield, it was so easy to pretend. In the heart of the Oasis, at the peak of the Shield Pylon looming over the city sprawl, one could scarcely notice there was a sandstorm going on at all-- likely by design.  
  
For better or worse, Shepherd’s Rock became the capital of Calcian, the seat of Calcian’s planetary government.  
  
And Henry Mavis, planetary governor, had the best seat in the house.  
  
“Agents!” Mavis said, painting on a warm, welcoming smile. “Welcome to Shepherd’s Rock, and to my humble abode.”  
  
‘Humble’ was certainly one word for it. Mavis’ office was practically a penthouse, the highest point in the city, and surrounded by a transparent dome of hardened armaglass. The room had a full, grand view of the Shield’s projected sky above and the dizzying drop to the sleek, polished city sprawl below. The only things spoiling his view were the giant in armor who stood at his shoulder, and the two Agents before him, their hands formally clasped behind their backs.  
  
“Governor Mavis,” Syl began. “I am Senior Agent Sylwyn Telerian, representing Order asset Sparrow. This is my partner, Agent Tabitha Crane.”  
  
Crane lifted her skirts and dipped into a curtsy.  
  
“A lovely partner, at that,” Mavis chuckled. Syl and Crane tried their best not to roll their eyes. “What brings your team to Calcian, Agent Telerian?”  
  
“We are investigating a string of deaths that we believe to be linked to a drug known as ‘black sand’,” Syl explained. “Ordinary dreamsand is a popular recreational drug that induces euphoria. This toxic variant is apparently so powerful and so addictive that its users will remain in that dreamlike state until they starve to death. These victims are so blissed out that they will lay down and let themselves die.”  
  
“How dreadful,” Mavis said, as if Syl were talking about wearing clashing colors rather than people wasting away in a drug-induced delirium. “It’s terrible, what some people turn to for their… entertainment. But every drug has their bad batches, surely? I’m surprised that the Order would dispatch their esteemed Agents to investigate so small a concern.”  
  
“‘Small’ is relative, Governor Mavis,” Crane said, with an icy edge.  
  
“You would know,” the man beside Mavis scoffed.  
  
Crane glowered. Mavis cleared his throat, hurrying the conversation along. “...Agents, this is Colonel Floros, Calcian Planetary Defense.”  
  
Floros merely grunted in response. Like his troopers, he wore rust-red combat plate over sandy brown fatigues. Unlike his troopers, the colonel also wore a dark, furred mantle slung over one shoulder, the other emblazoned with a crest-- a shield, bearing the face of a screaming gorgon. The crest of the Calcian 54th “Paladins”, Aegis Company.  
  
Crane pursed her lips. There was a strange glint to the colonel’s eyes. Not unlike Robyn’s own cybernetic replacements. War would do that to a person, she supposed.  
  
“What surprises me, Colonel,” Crane continued, “is that neither you nor the governor seem to have been expecting our arrival, when it was one of your own officers who invited us here in the first place.”  
  
Mavis and Floros exchanged glances.  
  
“Regardless,” Syl continued, changing tack. “If you’ll have us, we’ll be happy to work in tandem with your forces. We look forward to supplementing your own investigation.”  
  
“There _is_ no investigation,” Floros muttered. “Shepherd’s Rock is a big place. I don’t have the manpower or the resources to devote to digging into every beachhead who ODs. Aegis Company has its hands full just manning the Oasis Gates. But, hey, feel free to go sniffing around. I’ll stay outta your way as long as you stay outta mine.”  
  
It was Syl and Crane’s turn to exchange looks. Syl cleared her throat.  
  
“...Well, then,” she said. “The Order thanks you for your… cooperation.”  
  
“Of course, of course!” Mavis said, clapping his hands together with a big, toothy smile. “We’ll assist you in any way we can, Agents. After all, this city has _nothing_ to hide.”  
  
~*~  
  
“That went well,” Syl said lightly. She and Crane were zooming down the side of the Shield Pylon in a transparent elevator tube, watching the sleek contours of the Oasis rise up to greet them.  
  
“Did it?” Crane scoffed. “Governor Mavis is so far past two-faced he practically has three.”  
  
“Well, that much is apparent,” Syl agreed.  
  
“It doesn’t take a psychic,” Crane murmured. “If you ask me, the only part of that meeting that went ‘well’ was when the governor’s secretary said my glasses looked nice.”  
  
“She’s not wrong,” Syl said, nudging Crane’s arm. “But she may just have been making small talk while we were stuck outside the office. I didn’t know how long he was going to make us wait before he saw us.”  
  
“Standard intimidation tactic,” Crane shrugged. “Or the governor’s just your garden variety sexist. Cute secretary, though.”  
  
“Is that a point for or against misogyny?”  
  
“It varies.”  
  
Crane shrugged again. She pushed her glasses-- with sleek, cat’s eye frames, thank you very much-- further up her nose.  
  
“At least there’s _someone_ who appreciates what I’m wearing today,” Crane teased. She spun her parasol over her shoulder, her dark skirts swishing at her heels.  
  
Syl fondly rolled her eyes. “You look ridiculous.”  
  
“Do not.”  
  
“You look like Death of the Endless.”  
  
“That’s a _good look_!”  
  
Their elevator pinged as they reached the ground floor. Syl and Crane departed the Shield Pylon, Crane clinging to Syl’s arm. They would almost have fit in with the Oasis’ wealthy locals-- if not for the darkness of their clothes, the badges that still glinted at their breasts, or the fact that they were out and about past curfew. They almost looked like they belonged, just like how the Oasis almost looked perfect and at peace. Almost. But not quite.  
  
“I don’t like this,” Syl murmured, on the automated train taking them back the way they’d come. Crane was curled up beside her, still clinging to her arm and resting her head on her shoulder. To any onlookers, they looked like just another couple on their evening commute, sleepily murmuring their affections in each other’s ears-- not that any self-respecting citizen of the Oasis would be riding _towards_ the Gate this late at night.  
  
“What don’t you like?” Crane wondered.  
  
“There’s something strange at work here,” Syl muttered. “A dozen people dead in a month. Allegedly from overdose. But when we arrive, there’s no documentation, no medical examination, no formal investigation. It’d be more accurate to say they disappeared, and were simply written off as dead.”  
  
“And the local authorities don’t much care either way,” Crane said darkly.  
  
“Exactly,” Syl said. “Our petitioner did so anonymously, but their message was tagged with the clearance and authority of a sergeant in Calcian PDF. Someone went above their superior’s heads-- far above the chain of command-- and got the Order involved.”  
  
“And that’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it?” Crane said, squeezing Syl’s arm. “Some compassionate heart out there called out for justice when his own bosses turned a deaf ear.”  
  
“I wish I could say we _were_ here for them,” Syl said, troubled. “But the problem is, we’re not. What’s bothering me, Tabby, is that if it weren’t for the rumors of Malice being involved, the Order wouldn’t be here at all.”  
  
Syl heaved a sigh. Crane leaned in, searching her eyes, but Syl pulled away.  
  
They stepped out onto the platform, and entered the connecting tunnel between the inner and outer Oasis Gates. Syl hesitated, just inside the threshold, gazing at the armored ranks of Aegis Company troopers, facing out into the storm, and to the rushing, scouring gale beyond.  
  
Even protected by the vast walls of the Oasis Gate, bits of the storm still slipped through. The wind ruffled Syl’s hair, rumpling her immaculate suit. Strange flecks of light flickered around her form, like dead pixels on a dataslate.  
  
Syl pulled out her comm, and glanced down her list of contacts. Morgan was at the top of her list, followed by Aabha. Out of curiosity, she tried Morgan for a holocall. The holofield above the palm-sized comm shrieked and howled with static, a glimmering blue counterpoint to the sandstorm above.  
  
Crane’s hand closed around Syl’s, and pulled her comm shut. Syl met Crane’s eyes, sighed, and shook her head.  
  
“The problem with investigating a Breach is that there’s no middle ground,” Syl muttered. “Either it has its hooks in the city, invisible, poisoning our minds but almost impossible to trace, save for a nagging feeling on the edge of our senses… or it’s a full-blown Malefic incursion and the city is overrun with daemons, at which point it’ll hardly take a psychic to know that they’re there.”  
  
Something tapped against Syl’s shoulder. She blinked away her melancholy, glancing back to find Crane offering her parasol, handle-first.  
  
Syl smiled, and took it in her hands, the projected hologram dissipating into flecks of light until she was holding not a parasol, but her trusty longsword in its sheath.  
  
Crane’s lips curled into a smirk, her glass-green eyes glinting strangely in the light.  
  
“Nothing here is as it seems,” she admitted. “But then again, neither are we.”  
  
Flecks of green light sloughed off of their forms like leaves on the wind, the sandstorm scouring away the holosuits projected over their bodies and revealing what lay beneath-- a sharp, tailored suit for Crane, and for Syl, a long coat in forest green, slitted up the back to accommodate the sword sheathed at her hip.  
  
Syl offered her arm. Crane took it.  
  
Together, they strode, unflinching, into the storm.  
  
~*~  
  
“I’m sorry, sir,” Sergeant Castor was saying wearily, “but I’m afraid there is no entry to the Oasis permitted after curfew, especially not with a dust warning in effect.”  
  
Maxwell huffed in irritation. He pinched the bridge of his nose, before putting on the most patient smile he could muster.  
  
“Now, listen here…” Maxwell’s eyes flicked down to the rank insignia on Castor’s armor. “...Sergeant.”  
  
He clapped a ‘friendly’ hand onto Castor’s shoulder, lifting up his engraved cane and playfully rapping its twin-serpent headpiece against Castor’s chestplate.  
  
“ _You_ look like a young man just trying to do his duty to his city,” Maxwell continued. “That, you’ll find, is something we have in common, Sergeant. I understand that your gate duty is meant to keep various unsavory types from disturbing the peace… but surely, you can make an exception for a humble researcher who’s left a few files in the office? It won’t take me thirty minutes, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”  
  
Castor heaved a long-suffering sigh. “That’s all very well, Professor, but again, it’s after curfew and the dust is up, so this Gate must remain closed. So, unless you’ve got an appointment with the governor himself…”  
  
“Now, _about_ that…” Maxwell grumbled.  
  
Two women strode past, their coats flying in the howling wind. Maxwell turned, his eyes tracing a path up their lithe forms and settling, with a gasp, on the badges glinting at their breasts.  
  
The Order, here on Calcian? Curious. _Very_ curious…  
  
“If you’ll excuse me, Sergeant…” Maxwell muttered, intrigued.  
  
Maxwell followed Syl and Crane into the storm, his cloak billowing at his shoulders, the russet dust cloud swallowing them up.  
  
~*~  
  
It was late evening, though on Calcian, the distinction meant little. The sun hung low in the air, agonizingly close to setting and bringing shade and relief to the scorched city. But it didn’t set, not fully, and it wouldn’t again, not for months. It was just that time of year again- the driest part of the dry season, with almost four full months of polar sunlight.    
  
Not to mention the dust. The dust was a constant on Calcian. It coated clothes, shoes, found its way into packs and pockets, itched at eyes, irritated throats. When the dust rose, every street became a wind tunnel filled with a blinding beige cloud that smashed through city blocks like a tidal wave. When the dust settled, the city was almost beautiful, but only for a moment. Soon enough, the glare off the clay-and-plaster habs would become just as blinding as any sandstorm, and you’d almost be praying for the dust alarms to start wailing again.  
  
Never knowing when the dust would rise and bring visibility to zero, taking the skimmer wasn’t an option, so the team had been obliged to walk. Thankfully, Vincent hadn’t been kidding when he said their contact was just around the corner.  
  
The hab complex was a squat, broad building of pale stone or clay worn smooth by the endless dust, divided into cubic cells. Each apartment had a hatch and a single shuttered window. It was like a neat slice of a gargantuan termite mound, pulled out of the earth and mounted behind glass. On the sloped roof, tiles glimmered in the light, humming with energy.  
  
The storm had cleared for the moment, but the yellow alert sirens were still flashing across the city streets, like stars in the ruddy twilight. Shanti broke away from the group, picking out a nice perch to keep watch with her drones-- not that she’d be able to see a thing if, or when, the dust rose again. Already, a rising wind was filming everyone’s goggles and coating every surface with a fine powder that an optimist might pretend was sugar.  
  
Aabha reached up and adjusted a dial on her badge. A holosuit shimmered into place against her like a second skin, hiding her armor behind a shimmering semblance of her casual clothes.  
  
“I don’t think showing up in full armor’s going to send the right signals,” Aabha explained. “Remember, we only want to talk.”  
  
“We don’t want to spook him, either,” Vincent said, keying a number into his comm. “We might scare him off, rollin’ into his neighborhood with this kinda entourage.”  
  
“Agreed,” Morgan said. “Aabha, Kit, Vincent, you three handle the handshake. I’ll keep watch with the Chief. Lily, Lila, you can do as you please, but don’t wander so far that you can’t find us again. Take in the sights, maybe.”  
  
“For as long as we can _see_ them, anyhow,” Lily mused.  
  
Morgan and the Chase sisters departed, Lily with an affectionate nudge against Kit’s elbow as she went past. The dust alert flashed over their heads, adding a tinge of acid yellow to the murky red twilight. The wind shivered Aabha’s holosuit, and tugged at Vincent and Kit’s foul weather capes. Kit blew out a sigh, idly glancing down at the stamped tag of Order Logistics on the edge of her poncho.  
  
‘General purpose foul-weather kit’, Kit read. She sniffed. “Seems like _every_ day’s foul weather on this miserable rock.”  
  
“Not every day,” Aabha said. She nodded towards the panels on the hab complex’s roof. Every building on the block had similar panels on their roofs and upper levels. “Look. This whole city’s a solar farm. Even if the dust only clears for a few hours a day, this much sunlight, over this much area… the city should have power to spare. More than enough to power a barrier over the whole city, and not just the Oasis. Any reason why they don’t?”  
  
“Apart from the obvious?” Kit shrugged.  
  
Aabha frowned. She turned to Vincent. “Anything?”  
  
“Harrell’s not picking up,” Vincent sighed, clicking off his comm and tucking it away. “Could be the dust is still fucking with comm reception. Guess we gotta do this the old fashioned way.”  
  
Aabha felt Kit and Vincent’s eyes on her. She blinked.  
  
“...Right. Here goes.”  
  
She turned towards the bare metal hatch, any paint having long since abraded away. Aabha reached out--  
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
Aabha paused, her hand poised to knock, before pulling away. A young woman, half-hidden in the darkness of the hatchway, had slid the hatch open a crack and was gazing at the team with sunken eyes. Her hair was a tangle of dark curls, and her voice was a weary rasp.  
  
“You’re loitering,” she said bluntly, in a voice as dry and dusty as Calcian itself.  
  
“...Right…” Aabha cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. Um. Are you Serafine Crespo?”  
  
The woman leered at her. She folded her arms across her chest. “...Maybe.”  
  
“I’m Junior Agent Aabha Puri of Order Asset Sparrow,” Aabha said, holding up her badge. “These are my colleagues. We’re looking for Dylan Harrell. Does he live here?”  
  
Serafine studied each of them in turn, her eyes glinting strangely in the light. Despite the bags under her eyes and the lethargy in her voice, her eyes were bright and alert. Her stare seemed to pierce right through them.  
  
There was a slight shift in the air around them. Aabha’s lips twitched into the barest frown, but she said nothing.  
  
“You know,” Serafine began, “I don’t think I remember. Sorry.”  
  
Serafine made to pull the hatch shut. Kit slapped her hand against the frame.  
  
“Maybe we can help you remember,” Kit said.  
  
Serafine glanced from Aabha, to Kit, to Kit’s wallet pointedly pressed into the side of her door. She swallowed.  
  
“...One hundred platinum,” she blurted out.  
  
Kit felt a pang of guilt stab into her chest. One hundred platinum was nothing; pocket change. Barely enough to buy yourself a monthly magrail pass. And despite that, just six months ago, Kit would’ve called a hundred platinum a good night’s work after pickpocketing her way through the streets of Trance City.  
  
Kit counted out the bills, knowing Serafine was watching her, kicking herself, knowing she could have asked for more.  
  
Serafine quickly took the bills, folded them, and tucked them out of sight. Her eyes darted warily across the trio at her door, before looking past them, into the street beyond. Again, Aabha felt that strange shift in the air.  
  
“You should come inside,” Serafine said, stepping aside. “All of you.”  
  
~*~  
  
The team gathered inside Serafine’s apartment just as the dust rose yet again. Serafine ushered Morgan and the Chase sisters inside, as if she’d known they were lurking nearby all along. The only team member to stay outside was Shanti, stubbornly insistent on keeping watch, huddled in her poncho on a rooftop with her drones spread across neighboring streets.  
  
Morgan stood by the door, his hands formally clasped behind his back, while the rest of the team was on Serafine’s couch. Her couch had certainly seen better days-- the cover torn in a dozen places, bits of foam peeking through. Vincent was perched on the armrest, thinking about joking about the couch being used as cover in a firefight-- and deciding not to, just in case it was true. The girls were squished together on the couch proper, but then again, that was hardly new.  
  
Serafine herself sat cross-legged on a battered leather armchair, sipping from a mug of tea, warily studying the crew.  
  
“What do you want with Dylan?” Serafine asked. “Are you here to kill him?”  
  
“What? No!” Aabha gasped.  
  
“We only want to talk,” Morgan offered.  
  
“For people who just want to talk, you sure are armed to the teeth,” Serafine sniffed. “Smart, considering the city you’re in.”  
  
“What can you tell us about this city, Miss Crespo?” Morgan asked.  
  
Serafine raised and lowered one shoulder. “What’s there to say? It’s rough. Getting rougher by the day. That’s just what it’s like, being poor, not that the folks in the Oasis can feel it, nice and cozy behind their Shield. Though I gotta say, things didn’t start to get real bad until about a month ago.”  
  
“What happened a month ago?” Aabha asked.  
  
“The PDF abandoned us,” Serafine muttered. “They pulled out of the city and got posted at the Oasis Gates. Governor Mavis said some BS about the Shield undergoing some kind of system upgrade, and needing the ‘extra security’ while they were working. But it’s been a month, and they haven’t come back. If I had a taste of life inside the Gate, I don’t know if I would, either.”  
  
Serafine took a sip of her tea, her lips curling into a rueful smile.  
  
“‘The Forgotten Quarter’. That’s what we started calling the part of the city outside the Shield. Never mind that it’s most of the city. You know, back in the day, you’d see PDF troopers patrolling the streets, talking to the people around here, at least pretending they gave a shit. Now, they’re hunkered down at the Gate, while the sandstorms just seem to be getting worse and worse. They left us in the dust to let the Quarter fill up with beachheads.”  
  
“‘Beachheads’?” Lila wondered.  
  
“Have you ever taken dreamsand?” Serafine asked. She looked Lila up and down. “...You don’t seem the type. But I’ll tell you, it seems like the neighborhood’s favorite way to forget. Take a hit of dreamsand, and you’ll forget all about your worries. You’ll forget you live here, on Calcian, in this shithole city. You’ll walk outside and lay down like you’re on a beach, not a desert planet, and then the sandstorm will swallow you up. That’s why we call ‘em beachheads.”  
  
“Have you ever taken dreamsand, Miss Crespo?” Aabha asked.  
  
Serafine snorted. “If I did, would I say so to half a dozen heavily armed narcs?”  
  
Aabha blinked, taken aback.  
  
“...she’s got a point,” Kit admitted.  
  
“It was just a question…” Aabha murmured, sheepish.  
  
“Alright, don’t get all pouty,” Serafine cut in. “I don’t, for the record. Plenty of folks out here are willing to get paid in dreamsand over cash, but I’ve never touched the stuff. Just call it a gut feeling.”  
  
“Well, your gut’s on to something,” Lily said. “You picked a great time not to start.”  
  
“The Order is investigating the spread of a toxic variant of dreamsand,” Morgan explained. “We received reports of several disappearances, and deaths, within this city, and we believe the spread of this ‘black sand’ may be related.”  
  
Serafine stared at him. “...And you think my _boyfriend_ , of all people, can help an Order investigation?”  
  
“Well… yeah,” Vincent said.  
  
“Shit,” Serafine blinked. “I’ll give him a call.”  
  
Serafine pulled out an old, secondhand holocomm and keyed in Dylan’s number. She got nothing but a blurt of squealing, fuzzy static.  
  
Morgan’s comm chirped, and he glanced down at the display.  
  
“Shanti says there’s someone coming our way,” he said.  
  
“That should be Dylan,” Serafine said. “I couldn’t get through on my comm to tell him you were here, but… well. Hopefully he won’t do anything stupid.”  
  
“Hopefully,” Lily shrugged.  
  
“So…” Serafine leaned forward, a strange glimmer in her eyes. “...do you think it’s daemons?”  
  
The team exchanged glances.  
  
“C’mon, guys, I’m not stupid,” Serafine said. “If somebody like me goes missing in a city like this, that shit doesn’t even make the news. But if there’s dark magic shit involved, you guys come running. So. Do you think it’s daemons?”  
  
There was a soft electronic chime from the rear of the apartment, followed by the brief howling of the sandstorm outside.  
  
“Well, Miss Crespo,” Aabha said, getting to her feet, “that’s what we’re here to find out.”  
  
“Sera!” a voice called out.  
  
“Dylan!” Serafine called. “Dylan, I’ve got company, so don’t do anything stupid!”  
  
“What kinda company are we talking abo--”  
  
Dylan Harrell, in a weather-beaten jacket and ragged poncho, froze at the sight of the team gathered in his living room. The crest of the Order flashed across his eyes.  
  
“Sir--” Aabha began.  
  
Two shots hit her in the chest and slammed her back down onto the couch.  
  
“Aabha!” Kit cried.  
  
“I’m okay!” Aabha gasped, her holosuit disappearing in a flash of light, revealing her armor beneath. “I’m okay, go!”  
  
Six more rounds flashed off of the shining blue barrier Morgan conjured between them, before Dylan turned and ran, dropping his empty clip onto the kitchen floor and fumbling for a fresh one in his jacket. Kit snarled and gave chase, along with Lily, Aabha, and Vincent, muttering curses. They disappeared into the storm raging outside. The door slid shut behind them, leaving Serafine’s apartment in a stunned, surreal quiet.  
  
“That fucking idiot!” Serafine growled. She balled her fists and huffed out a sigh.  
  
Lila whimpered, clutching her cheek. Serafine turned to her, blinking.  
  
“...Hey,” Serafine murmured, urgent. “Hey, are you okay?”  
  
Lila pulled her hand away from her face, revealing a shocking amount of blood. Serafine recoiled, spitting a curse.  
  
“Let me take a look,” Morgan insisted.  
  
One of Dylan’s shots, fired in a panic, had deflected off of Aabha’s armor and grazed Lila’s cheek. Morgan examined the wound, his fingertips shining with the soothing green light of healing magic. Lila was lucky, Morgan muttered as he worked, because if the wound had been just an inch higher Lila might have lost an eye. It could be replaced, of course, organically or cybernetically, but such procedures didn’t come cheap.  
  
Morgan smoothed his thumb across the cut on Lila’s cheek, sealing the wound with magic. He frowned, puzzled. It was taking an unusual amount of time for his healing power to take effect, and even when it did, it didn’t smooth the wound away completely. There was still a red welt streaking across Lila’s cheek, that stubbornly remained even after Morgan’s spell faded.  
  
Morgan washed Lila’s blood from his hands in Serafine’s kitchen sink. He shook his hands dry, before checking his comm. Aabha, Kit, Lily, and Vincent showed up as little blue arrowheads on his map of the immediate area, but they were slowly getting further and further away.  
  
“I should get out there,” Morgan muttered.  
  
“Hey,” Serafine demanded, getting to her feet. “What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot him?”  
  
“ _No,_ ” Morgan said firmly. “I meant what I said. We only want to talk. ...If he lets us, that is.”  
  
Serafine paused, and nodded. Morgan slipped away, muttering something about watching the back door. Serafine slumped back into her armchair and pulled her legs up onto the seat. She was always a petite woman, but seeing her hunched over like this made her seem particularly small.  
  
“Um,” Lila spoke up, breaking the oppressive silence. “I, um. I think it’s going to be okay. I mean, I don’t think they’re really gonna shoot him.”  
  
Lila winced. Serafine managed a rueful smile.  
  
“Well. He _did_ shoot first.” Serafine sighed, blowing an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “...Moron.”  
  
Lila scooted closer.  
  
“So, um…” Lila began shyly, “how long have you two been, um…”  
  
Serafine raised an eyebrow. “Fucking?”  
  
_“I was going to say ‘together’!”_ Lila sputtered.  
  
“You’re cute,” Serafine teased, chuckling. “What’s a nice girl like you doing hanging out with the feds?”  
  
“The Order?” Lila asked. “The Order saved my life. Me, and my sister, Lily. If it weren’t for them, I’d still be in my father’s penthouse on Persephone.”  
  
Serafine sniffed. “Doesn’t sound too bad to me.”  
  
“Maybe if my dad wasn’t a controlling creep,” Lila said, “and all my gifts weren’t bought with blood money. Lily got me out-- got us both out, and risked her life doing it. She’s the reason our father’s criminal empire went down in flames. The Dark Star Syndicate is in ruins. Adrian Chase is finished.”  
  
“Whoa, time out,” Serafine balked. “Adrian Chase was your father? You’re _the_ Delilah Chase?”  
  
“Y-Yes?” Lila said.  
  
Serafine looked Lila up and down. “...Do you have _any_ idea how much some folks are willin’ to pay to see you dead?”  
  
“Yes,” Lila squeaked. “D-Don’t get any ideas…!”  
  
“Relax, relax,” Serafine said, smiling. “I’m just surprised, is all. Mafia princess Delilah Chase… I mean, shit, look at you. You’re just a kid!”  
  
“So are you,” Lila huffed.  
  
“I’m _nineteen_ ,” Serafine rolled her eyes.  
  
“That’s kid-aged!” Lila pouted, crossing her arms. “...Oh, who am I kidding? I spent my whole life in Chase Tower before the Order took me in. You’re only a year older than me, and you feel like you’re from a whole other world. I’ve never had my own place… never been in love…”  
  
Serafine snorted. “You think Dylan’s my Prince Charming? Please. It’s just sex.”  
  
“...I’ve never done _that_ , either,” Lila grumbled.  
  
Serafine hopped out of her chair and went poking through the kitchen cupboards, finally re-emerging with a band-aid.  
  
“Listen, princess. Everybody has something they want to forget. And everybody has their own way how,” Serafine flopped back into her armchair, peeling off the little bits of wax paper. “Some people get high. Some people get fucked. And _some_ people…”  
  
Serafine leaned in and stuck the band-aid on Lila’s cheek.  
  
“...cover it up,” Serafine finished.  
  
Lila blinked rapidly, still fixated on the feeling of Serafine’s fingers against her cheek. There was a strange feeling in the air, a tingling feeling at the edge of her thoughts, one that seemed strangely familiar-- and then Lila gasped when she realized why.  
  
“You’re a Psion!” Lila blurted out.  
  
“What,” Serafine blinked.  
  
Lila grabbed her hand. Serafine cringed, Lila’s eagerness bleeding into her head.  
  
“You’re a _Psion!_ ” Lila echoed.  
  
“I’m a Scorpio,” Serafine drawled.  
  
“You’re psychic!” Lila beamed, squeezing Serafine’s hand. “You can read minds! I know, because my friend Tabby-- uh, Agent Crane-- she’s the same way! And right now, I can feel this weird tingly feeling in my head that’s the same thing I feel whenever she uses her powers! Can’t you feel it in the air? Can’t you feel the tingle?”  
  
Serafine laughed, despite herself. “...No… I think that’s just you…”  
  
“You should tell someone!” Lila urged. “You should tell the team when they get back!”  
  
“What? No,” Serafine protested. She pulled her hand out of Lila’s grasp.  
  
“Why not? You can become a registered Psion, get trained--”  
  
“Get _drafted_ , more like,” Serafine huffed. “Sorry, princess, but I think I’ll pass.”  
  
“But you can get away from here!” Lila insisted. “The Order can give you a whole new life!”  
  
“Sure, as their lapdog,” Serafine scoffed.  
  
“Look at this!” Lila said, throwing her arms out and gesturing to Serafine’s cramped, filthy apartment. “You don’t deserve to live like this! You deserve better!”  
  
“So does everyone else in this fucking neighborhood!” Serafine snapped. “Why should I get an easy way out, huh? Why should _I_ get ‘saved’ and not them?!”  
  
Lila didn’t know what to say. She hung her head, wringing her hands.  
  
“...It isn’t right,” Lila murmured.  
  
Serafine took a deep breath, and sighed.  
  
“It isn’t,” Serafine said quietly. “But, hey. Thanks for caring, at least.”  
  
Lila looked up. Serafine offered her a weary smile.  
  
A bang snapped their attention to the front door.  
  
“Dylan?” Serafine wondered. “What, did you lose your key?”  
  
There was a clatter against the hatch, followed by low, haggard breathing. In the distance, the dust alarms kept blaring, and the sandstorm kept howling its banshee wail.  
  
Another frantic banging on the door. The girls exchanged looks.  
  
“Dylan...?” Serafine murmured.  
  
~*~  
  
Less than a minute away from Serafine’s apartment, and the Forgotten Quarter’s streets became a labyrinth of wind tunnels and sandblasted walls.  
  
Visually, Kit had lost Dylan’s trail the instant he’d stepped out into the sandstorm. But for awhile, Kit was certain she’d had his scent. She’d followed her nose out into the maelstrom, bolting down alleyways and streets lit by acid yellow dust sirens and the ruddy glow of Calcian’s midnight sun. She’d run past alcoves where the homeless huddled in their coats, past blissed-out addicts oblivious to the sandstorm ravaging the streets, past a thousand locked doors and shuttered windows-- only to come to a stop in front of a dingy, clay-walled apartment, no different from the hundreds of other shabby tenements rising from this block like termite mounds.  
  
Kit stopped short, in fox form, raising her snout and sniffing the air. She transformed in a flash of golden light, sniffing, baring her teeth, balling her fists.  
  
Kit threw her arm forward, conjuring a gale of magicked wind that blasted down an alleyway. She snarled and whirled around, summoning another gale that parted the sandstorm for just a moment. An instant later, the ruddy twilight drew back in around her, all but swallowing up the blaring of the dust alert overhead.  
  
Kit coughed, and spat out a mass of sticky red phlegm. She pulled the hem of her poncho back up over her mouth and nose.  
  
Sound carried strangely down the adjoining streets. Aabha appeared, then Lily, heralded by the clicking of their boots on the paving stones and by the whirling hum of the sandstorm against Aabha’s armor, nicking and scraping.  
  
“Anything?” Aabha asked.  
  
“Nothing,” Kit kicked the curb in frustration. “I’m sorry, Aabha.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Aabha urged.  
  
“I’m sorry, too, Aabha,” Lily said.  
  
“It’s _okay_ ,” Aabha insisted. “That’s what the armor’s for.”  
  
Kit nodded mutely. Aabha curled an arm around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze.  
  
“We should get back,” Aabha said. “If Dylan Harrell’s a dead end, we need to regroup--”  
  
A sound echoed down the street, carried by the howling wind. The unmistakable sound of a gunshot.  
  
“Lila,” Kit muttered with a gasp, but Lily was already running.  
  
~*~  
  
The back door to Serafine’s apartment burst open with a bang.  
  
“Law enforcement!” Aabha called. She moved in, her chakrams crossed over her chest, Kit and Lily at her side.  
  
“Stand down!” Morgan’s voice drifted in from the living room.  
  
Aabha’s chakrams disappeared in twin swirls of fire. She blinked. “Sir?”  
  
The girls found Morgan kneeling over a man on the floor, a stunned Lila and Serafine looming nearby. The front hatchway was half-open, and the sandstorm spilled through, coating the floor with a fine layer of dust and filling the air with its incessant shrieking.  
  
Lily was at Lila’s side in an instant. Lila was staring, wide-eyed, at the man on the floor, clutching Lily’s derringer so tight her knuckles were white.  
  
“Lila,” Lily urged. “Lila, look at me.”  
  
Lila didn’t respond. Serafine wordlessly met Lily’s eyes, before drawing up behind Lila and laying her hands on her shoulders. Serafine grit her teeth as Lila’s shock and horror bled into her mind, just as Lila breathed out a sigh. She glanced over her shoulder, and met Serafine’s eyes for just a moment too long. Then she turned, back to Lily, and let her gently pluck the pistol from her white-knuckled grip.  
  
“H-He just…” Lila swallowed hard. “He just came at me.”  
  
“Mistaken exchange,” Aabha said, somber. She shook her head. “It’s not pretty. But this kind of thing happens in the field.”  
  
Vincent came running in the back door, out of breath.  
  
“Hey! What are you guys doing back here? You lost Harrell?”  
  
Kit bristled. “ _We_ lost Harrell?”  
  
“Now’s not the time,” Morgan chided. “Aabha, help me, please.”  
  
Aabha joined Morgan above the man’s prone form. He was a stick-thin, malnourished wretch in shabby, weather-beaten clothes, all the color in them long since scoured away by Calcian’s sandstorms. Lila’s panicked shot hit him right in the chest.  
  
Morgan had already managed to extract the slug, the small caliber round drifting out of the man’s chest while cradled in a web of arcane energy. Morgan tossed it aside, before clamping a hand over the man’s chest wound, his palm shining with green light.  
  
“Sir,” Aabha began warily, “I’d love to help, really, but I’ve only ever healed myself. I’m not… _entirely_ sure my power can heal others…”  
  
“That’s alright,” Morgan said quietly. “I just need another set of eyes on this. Concentrate.”  
  
Aabha nodded. She exhaled slowly, slipping into astral space. The world faded into shifting shadows, the people around her blazing with light. Morgan, a bolt of azure lightning frozen into a leafless tree; Kit, a whirlwind tinged with gold, like wind through the wheat; Lily, pale and frosty like fog on a winter morning. Vincent, thoroughly lacking in magical potential, was a mere silhouette colored with a faint, gray breeze. Lila was a mote of gentle yellow light, like a firefly or a candleflame. Curiously, Serafine was a shimmering cloud of pale, ghostly gray.  
  
And then there was the astral signature of the man prone beside her-- hollow, empty, a hole in the world where a person should have been.  
  
Aabha gasped, snapping back into realspace. Morgan lifted his hand from the man’s chest, frowning. His healing power extended from his fingertips like vines of coiling green light, poking and prodding at the man’s wound but refusing to take root.  
  
“This isn’t working,” Morgan muttered. “Something’s wrong…”  
  
“Could there be something in his system suppressing the effects of magical healing?” Aabha wondered. “A drug, or combination of drugs…?”  
  
“This feels different,” Morgan insisted. “Look again.”  
  
Aabha nodded, concentrating, slipping back into astral space. The man was a shadow at her feet, a silhouette of negative space. That was already a bad sign-- in astral space, the light of life shone like a star. Mages had brighter astral signatures, but even an ordinary person without magical potential should still be visible. But this man’s astral signature was deadened, drained. There was a hole over his heart, a void, that the rest of him seemed to be falling into. He looked like… sand.  
  
Black sand, through an hourglass.  
  
The man cried out, sending the whole room jumping in alarm. He seized and convulsed, thrashing wildly. Aabha caught a flailing arm and held him down, while Morgan pressed down on the man’s chest, fighting for his spell to take hold. He struggled, crying out, wailing piteously.  
  
Lila screwed her eyes shut, cringing. God, he sounded like he was in _agony_ …  
  
Serafine looked up with a gasp, a nameless warning snapping at her senses.  
  
“Agents!” she called out.  
  
The man’s screaming began to change in timbre, sounding less like a scream and more like a howl. He burst up off the floor, hurling Aabha aside. He clamped a hand around Morgan’s throat and flung him like a rag doll.  
  
Morgan smacked into the half-open front hatch with a crunch of metal. He dropped, wheezing.  
  
The man snarled, his gaze flitting across his surroundings. His eyes locked on Lila across the room. He coiled his legs beneath him and pounced--  
  
He slammed to a halt in mid-air, Aabha’s chakrams looped around his arms. Aabha took a running jump, crunched her knee into the man’s spine and wrestled him to the ground, her chakrams wrenching his arms back.  
  
The man snarled up at Lila, a tell-tale violet flame in his eyes.  
  
Kit took his head off with a single stroke of her heat blade.  
  
“Okay!” Kit announced breezily, nudging the ghoul’s head across the carpet with the toe of her boot. “ _Now_ this investigation’s getting somewhere!”  
  
A volley of lasfire rang out outside, the howling sandstorm coming alive with the sharp, sizzling cracks of laser discharge. The team’s comms all chirped at once.  
  
_Contact,_ Shanti reported from her lookout perch. _Multiple hostiles inbound, unknown strength, but they’re not just here to say hello._ _  
_  
Aabha helped Morgan to his feet, and made to pull the front hatch shut. Morgan had dented it when he smashed against it. It rattled in its frame, jammed half-open.  
  
“Sorry about your door,” Aabha winced. Serafine shrugged.  
  
“I guess that’s a no on hunkering down here?” Lily asked.  
  
“We need to regroup,” Morgan said. “We still haven’t heard from Syl or Tabby--”  
  
“Sir, I’ve seen enough,” Aabha cut in. “There’s something wrong with this city, and the people meant to defend it are nowhere to be seen. If _that’s_ what happens to someone with black sand in their system, then we need to know why it’s been allowed to spread unchecked. How long has this been going on? Why has The Order only been brought in now? And why did it take an anonymous tip from within the PDF, rather than an emergency request from the highest authorities? Just what the hell has Calcian’s governor been doing all this time?”  
  
“Sitting pretty behind his Shield and a regiment of PDF troops, that’s what,” Kit muttered, “spending a whole month with his head in the sand. I’ve got half a mind to just march right up to city hall and get some answers.”  
  
“As do I,” Aabha said, “which means, together, we’re of one mind. Senior Telerian? With your permission, I’d like to go kick down the door to city hall.”  
  
“Granted,” Morgan said. “Take the Chief with you-- it’s a long walk to the Gate, and there are still ghouls out there. Miss Crespo?”  
  
Serafine looked up. “Yes?”  
  
“Under the circumstances, I would like to take you under protective custody,” Morgan nodded to the ghoul’s body, smouldering on her floor, and the jammed, wedged-open front hatch letting in the storm. “It is no longer safe for you to stay here.”  
  
Serafine swallowed hard, and nodded. “...Right.”  
  
Morgan clapped a hand on Aabha and Kit’s shoulders. “Link up with Syl and Tabby if you can. Be careful out there.”  
  
“You, too, sir,” Aabha said.  
  
“I’ll take the rest of the team back to the Sparrow,” Morgan said. “As soon as the storm clears enough for comms, send me an update.”  
  
“I will,” Aabha nodded.  
  
“Alright, let’s get back out there,” Morgan announced, clapping his hands together. “Everyone! Goggles on, breathers on. Keep it tight and keep it together. Let’s move!”  
  
~*~  
  
“Wait,” Syl hissed. _“Wait.”_  
  
Crane pouted, petulant, before peeking around the corner anyway. Syl grabbed her by the sleeve and yanked her back into cover, just as a trio of ghouls leapt past, trailing black smoke, their eyes burning an unearthly violet.  
  
Syl had her back pressed up against the alley wall, her arm around Crane’s waist. Crane smirked, curling into her just so.  
  
“Well, now,” Crane teased, “doesn’t _this_ bring back memories.”  
  
“Points off for chatter, _Junior_ Crane,” Syl drawled.  
  
“Is it clear?”  
  
“Yes. Go, go.”  
  
They slipped down the street, just two among hundreds of shadows dancing in the flickering, ruddy twilight. A lone ghoul perched on a sidewalk lifted its head, sniffing. It died with a whimper, a trio of suppressed hard rounds zipping into its skull.  
  
Crane crouched at the lip of the next alley, peering into the storm. Syl loomed above her, shaking her head.  
  
“...We’ll never get back to the Sparrow at this rate,” Syl mused.  
  
“If you want, I could shift into cat form, run back undetected, and leave you here to fend off dozens of ghouls all by yourself,” Crane suggested.  
  
“Oh, but then I’d miss you,” Syl teased.  
  
“Cute,” Crane chuckled.  
  
They pushed forward a few more blocks, darting into cover to let groups of ghouls past, felling stragglers with tight bursts from Crane’s sidearm or artful strokes of Syl’s sword. They ran past a hab block full of apartments shuttered tight against the sandstorm, and slid into cover beneath a low stone wall, a dust siren blaring overhead.  
  
A ghoul crouched up the street, hunched over and sniffing the pavement like a hunting dog. Crane leaned out of cover and snapped off two shots. The ghoul hit the pavement, wheezing through the holes in its throat.  
  
Crane’s pistol clicked empty. She ducked back down and ejected the magazine with a scowl, slipping in her last spare.  
  
“Last mag,” Crane warned.  
  
“You wouldn’t have this problem if you just switched to las,” Syl chided.  
  
“Oh, yes? A nice loud crack and a bright line broadcasting my position? I’ll pass,” Crane scoffed.  
  
An eerie howling rose above the square, scoured by the sandy gale. Violet eyes emerged from the darkness, becoming ghouls, stick-thin and ravenous, their jaws trailing smoke and spittle. Crane rose from cover and fired into the crowd, biting back a pang of frustration. Frontline combat was hardly her area of expertise. Normally, she would have had a number of telepathic tricks at her disposal, but those talents were wasted on ghouls. A living mind, certainly. But the mind of a ghoul was one twisted and damned, consumed by Malice. That was not a mind Crane wanted to read in any detail.  
  
But there was still something in the air, in the sandstorm, that gnawed and frayed at the edge of Crane’s senses. There was something there, fathomless and inscrutable-- a hateful will, a murderous intent. As if the sandstorm itself was trying to hunt them down.  
  
Violet eyes in their dozens pierced the ruddy twilight of the sandstorm. Crane fired into the mist, before clutching her pistol to her chest with a hiss.  
  
“I’m out,” she warned.  
  
“It’s alright,” Syl muttered, drawing her sword. “Just stay behind me.”  
  
“My hero.”  
  
“Hush.”  
  
The pack of ghouls closed in around them, eyes burning with that unearthly violet flame. But they hesitated, lurking on the edge of the circle, sharing wary glances and chittering in their inhuman tongue.  
  
Then there was a crack, a tap of wood on pavement, and the swarm started hissing in a language Crane and Syl both knew.  
  
“Summoner,” they shrieked. “ _Summoner_ …”  
  
The swarm turned and fled, shoving aside their brethren in their haste to scurry away. Syl watched them go, her brows furrowed in suspicion, before turning and stabbing her sword towards the lone shadow remaining in the mist.  
  
There was another tap of wood against stone, and another, and another. A phantom emerged from the sandstorm, their cloak billowing in the wind.  
  
“Tinker, tailor…” Maxwell’s eyes flitted from Syl to Crane in turn. “Soldier. Spy.”  
  
“Doctor?” Crane wondered.  
  
“‘Doctor’?” Syl echoed.  
  
“Hello, Agents,” Maxwell said cheekily, leaning on his cane, glancing up at the storm surrounding them. “You picked a lovely night for a walk.”  
  
~*~  
  
Maxwell’s apartment was in the middle ring of the city. If the city were a peach, the Forgotten Quarter a skin ravaged by the elements, and the Oasis the solid pit at its heart, then the middle ring was still ripe, unblemished flesh. It existed in the shade of the Oasis Gate, beyond the Shielded Zone but still protected by large interlocking baffles that extended like gargantuan flower petals from the Gate structure.  
  
Rumor had it that there was a time when the Shield protecting the Oasis was purely physical, rather than a force field. The huge, articulated plates extending like awnings over the mid ring were supposedly the remnants of that early Shield, a hand-me-down barrier to the city’s middle class.  
  
Maxwell’s apartment was rather spartan, all told, but its sheer cleanliness leant it an air of luxury. It was simple, spare, utterly devoid of clutter or, really, any decorating flourishes at all. There was something off-putting about that, Syl thought, something eerie. But then again, interior design was hardly her area of expertise.  
  
“Agents,” Maxwell began blithely. He emerged from the kitchen, bearing a teacup on a saucer, which he sipped, pinky out. “I believe a proper introduction is in order.”  
  
“We are Agents Sylwyn Telerian and Tabitha Crane of Order asset Sparrow,” Crane said, meeting Maxwell’s eyes, “and you are Doctor Brennan Maxwell.”  
  
“My reputation precedes me, it seems,” Maxwell preened.  
  
“You know him?” Syl asked.  
  
“I know of him,” Crane shrugged. “Primarily through mission reports, the odd essay or two. Doctor, what brings you here to Calcian?”  
  
“I could ask you two the same,” Maxwell chuckled. “I work here, for now, at least. On paper, I’m an adjunct professor at Calcian University, here in the capital. I do a bit of tutoring, run a few remedial courses in the community center here in the mid ring. In practice, however…?”  
  
“You serve the Circle,” Syl said bluntly.  
  
Maxwell smiled. “Yes, indeed.”  
  
He leaned forward, his cloak pin catching the light-- a silver figure-eight in the form of the serpent, Ouroboros, eating its own tail.  
  
“The Circle of Ashes,” Maxwell intoned. “A scholastic conglomerate of mages and occultists, dedicated to seeking and preserving knowledge in all its forms. For knowledge, you see, persists long after our mortal forms are but ashes and dust. I am not here on Calcian, dear Agents, merely to help less-fortunate souls learn their letters. I am here to conduct research.”  
  
“And what kind of research is that?” Syl asked.  
  
“The only kind of research worth doing,” Maxwell smiled. “The kind of research that will save us all.”  
  
Maxwell’s comm chirped. He stopped short, frowning, dismayed that his melodrama would be cut off by something so mundane.  
  
“...Ah. If you would excuse me for just a moment…”  
  
Maxwell ducked into the kitchen to make his call, leaving Syl and Crane together in his living room. Syl laid a hand, palm up, on the couch between them. Crane took it, lacing their fingers together. Immediately, an undercurrent of tension, of suspicion, bled out of Crane’s psyche and into Syl’s own.  
  
_What is it?_ Syl sent, silent.  
  
_Something doesn’t feel right,_ Crane said squeezing her hand.  
  
“Forgive me, ladies,” Maxwell said, re-emerging from the kitchen and clicking off his comm. “Just needed to buzz someone in. A student of mine, late for his lesson. Where were we?”  
  
“Your research,” Crane offered.  
  
“Ah, yes,” Maxwell said. “I am here on Calcian for what, I suspect, are much the same reasons as your own. I seek humanity’s eternal foe, Malice. I seek its generals, the Aspects. Seth, The Sandstorm, the Aspect of Decay, has long made his presence known here in Calcian, but never so blatantly or as brazenly as tonight.”  
  
“Calcian has always had sandstorms,” Syl said.  
  
“Oh yes? Have they always included ghouls running amok?” Maxwell chuckled. He rose, clutching his engraved cane to his chest, and paced towards his window. “One of the difficulties of studying Malice, Agents, is that it cannot be studied like a mere force of nature. It has a will of its own. Mere minutes ago the storm was hounding you like a beast. Now?”  
  
Maxwell tapped his cane against the glass. “Now, it’s perfectly clear out there. As if it knows you’ve eluded it, for now. As if it’s waiting for you to poke your heads out again. Waiting for the chance to strike…”  
  
Maxwell turned, the crest of the Circle gleaming at his throat. He brushed his thumb against the haft of his cane, the eyes of the twin engraved serpents glinting emerald in the light.  
  
“The Sandstorm was content to work its craft from the shadows, slowly, patiently. But now you’re here, and you’ve forced its hand. You’ve stumbled upon the rattlesnake in its lair.”  
  
“You know why a snake starts to rattle,” Crane began.  
  
“Because it’s scared,” Syl replied.  
  
“Quite right,” Maxwell mused. “The Sandstorm knows you’re here. It knows there’s nowhere left to hide...”  
  
Frantic banging at the door.  
  
“Doc!” a voice called out. “Doc! Let me in! It’s serious!”  
  
“I hope you don’t mind company,” Maxwell smiled. He crossed to the door, and keyed it open with a tap of his cane.  
  
“The Order’s here!” the boy hissed as he burst through. “The Order’s--”  
  
Dylan Harrell stared, wide-eyed, at the badges on Syl and Crane’s lapels. He whirled around and bolted down the hall.  
  
Harrell seized, going stock still, with a gleam of emerald and a tap of Maxwell’s cane against the floor.  
  
“Mr. Harrell,” Maxwell smiled dangerously. “Have you met my guests?”  
  
~*~  
  
“Listen, ladies, I know you probably hear this all the time. But this, all this? _Huge_ misunderstanding.”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Crane said dryly. “Our team thought they could meet an informant _without_ getting shot at or led on a wild goose chase, but they misunderstood.”  
  
Harrell coughed. “Uh, yeah. Exactly.”  
  
Crane rolled her eyes.  
  
Up in Maxwell’s apartment, the storm had cleared up just enough for comms to get through. Morgan called to give Syl the update-- most of the team was safe aboard the Sparrow, while Aabha, Kit, and Shanti were making their way to city hall. At that point, Serafine had snatched Morgan’s comm to tell Harrell she was safe, and to berate him for firing on Order operatives in a panic-- though, in Harrell’s defense, he’d been under the impression he’d be meeting with Vincent alone, and wasn’t prepared to encounter Vincent’s official, heavily-armed escort.  
  
Now, by way of apology, Harrell was leading Syl and Crane to a meeting with one of the city’s dreamsand dealers, in the hopes of tracing the spread of black sand to its source.  
  
“They call themselves The Sandmen,” Harrell explained. “Guess they think of themselves as spreading sweet dreams.”  
  
“Except for the unlucky few who get nightmares instead,” Syl mused.  
  
“I wouldn’t know about any of that,” Harrell shrugged.  
  
“Have you ever taken dreamsand?” Crane asked.  
  
“Fuck no,” Harrell scoffed.  
  
“Oh, of course not,” Crane drawled. “That stuff will kill you.”  
  
“This city will kill you,” Harrell muttered. “It’s just a question of how.”  
  
The sandstorm was rising again. Harrell ushered the duo under an archway, a passing train rumbling overhead. Unlike the Oasis, with its strict curfew, beyond the Gate the trains never stopped running. There were always places to be, even in the dead of night. There was always work to be done.  
  
Harrell eased open a rusting, unmarked door. They stepped into a maintenance tunnel and ventured down into the city’s sublevels, the sandstorm becoming a muffled howling in the distance.  
  
“You’re ex-Syndicate, then?” Syl asked idly, as they walked.  
  
“Yeah,” Harrell said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I was a runner. An errand boy, a nobody. Been working for those pricks since I was in high school. Jerks, the lot of ‘em. Pay was decent enough, though. At least until the Order started cracking down on ‘em, and everything went to shit. The higher ups of the cell here on Calcian got scared, packed up their shit and ran.”  
  
“Only the guilty run,” Crane said coldly.  
  
“Sure,” Harrell muttered, “you tell yourself that.”  
  
“Mr. Harrell,” Syl began, “I know it might be hard to believe, but we’re on your side, here. We’re here to help.”  
  
“C’mon, lady. Just admit it,” Harrell shrugged. “You’re not here for me. If you didn’t think there was some weird dark magic shit going on in this city, you wouldn’t even be here.”  
  
Syl exhaled. She pursed her lips, and looked away.  
  
The tunnel split into three up ahead. One of the paths had collapsed, filled in with crumbling concrete rubble. Another was blocked off by a wooden PDF barricade, and a single on-duty trooper in his sandy brown fatigues and rust red combat plate.  
  
“You don’t belong here,” he called out in warning.  
  
“Easy, buddy,” Harrell waved him off. “We’re just passing through.”  
  
“Carry on,” the trooper grumbled.  
  
They turned down the open spur and went on their way, Crane casting a suspicious glance down the barricaded hall.  
  
“That tunnel,” she murmured thoughtfully. “Where does that lead?”  
  
“Under the Shield, I bet,” Harrell replied. “I mean, on paper, nobody’s really allowed to be down here. But about a month ago, the PDF got real serious about blocking off access into the area beneath the Oasis Gate. Something about some fancy refit, some construction project, who knows.”  
  
“A month ago,” Crane echoed, tapping her chin in thought. “When we got our first black sand ODs. And when the storms started getting worse…”  
  
“This whole city has something to hide,” Syl muttered scornfully.  
  
Harrell led them down the winding tunnels. For a long moment, the only sound was their footsteps on old concrete and the faint whistling of the sandstorm high above.  
  
Harrell stopped short and held his arm out.  
  
“Alright,” he said. “This is the place.”  
  
Syl wasn’t sure how he could tell-- the junction looked like any other crossroads in this claustrophobic maze of tunnels, surrounded by dim, dirty yellow lighting and rusting pipework. Regardless, the two women took a moment to ready their disguises. Crane adjusted the dial on her badge, while Syl passed a hand over her face, her glamour shifting.  
  
Twin illusions settled over their forms, bringing out their cheekbones, dirtying their hair, and putting bags under their eyes. They glanced at each other, Crane’s holosuit displaying her in a threadbare scarf, sweater, and ripped jeans, Syl’s glamour replacing her coat with a stained, grimy tracksuit. Crane chuckled, reaching up and flicking some illusory grime from Syl’s cheek.  
  
_Look at us_ , Crane teased. _It’s freshman year at the Academy all over again._  
  
_You’re far too pretty to be a junkie,_ Syl sent, deadpan.  
  
_So are you._  
  
Harrell’s eyes flitted anxiously between his comm and the adjoining corridor. He swallowed hard.  
  
“Alright,” he sighed. “Here we go…”  
  
Harrell turned to face the tunnel, Syl and Crane lingering behind him like phantoms, their hands stuffed in their pockets, shadows under their eyes. The dealer approached, a big man in a grubby hoodie, with an entourage of his own. Two shave-headed brutes, gang muscle, stood at his shoulders, their heads covered in sprawling tattoos. The dealer himself had a black dragon spiral tattoo on his cheek, and his eyes glinted strangely in the darkness of his hood.  
  
“Who are they?” he growled, indicating Syl and Crane with a jut of his chin.  
  
“They’re with me,” Harrell said. “You got the stuff?”  
  
The Sandman sniffed. “You got the money?”  
  
Harrell glanced around, wary. He pulled a wad of dirty bills out of his sleeve.  
  
“Here,” Harrell said. “Two thousand platinum, like we agreed.”  
  
Something tugged at Crane’s senses. She pursed her lips, reached out and touched Syl’s hand.  
  
_Behind us,_ she sent.  
  
Crane leaned into Syl, feeling the weight of her sheathed sword, hidden by her glamour, pressing into her hip. Crane put her hands on her hips, seemingly tucking her thumbs into her belt loops. Her fingers hovered over her weapons, hidden by her holographic disguise-- her sheathed dagger, and her pistol, unfortunately empty.  
  
“I know this ain’t for you,” the Sandman muttered, his voice as dry and dusty as the desert. “You sure you can move it?”  
  
“Yeah, I can move it,” Harrell snapped, trying to sound tough. “What’s it matter to you? Even if I can’t, you’ll still get paid.”  
  
“Sure. Two thousand platinum, easy money,” the Sandman sniffed. He glanced up to Syl and Crane. “But for two pretty faces like yours, I bet I could get even more…”  
  
“Want to find out?” Syl dared, her voice like ice.  
  
“Hey, hey, come on,” Harrell protested. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”  
  
The Sandman shot him a glare.  
  
Harrell recoiled, crying out in alarm. The black dragon tattoo on the Sandman’s face coiled and writhed beneath his skin, and his eyes shone with a red light more hellish and unearthly than any cybernetics could produce.  
  
“God...” Harrell sputtered.  
  
“Damn it,” Syl and Crane hissed.  
  
The black sigil on the man’s cheek spun and coiled, rearranging itself into a shape that made the Agents’ eyes water-- the toxic mark of the Enemy, branding its disciples.  
  
The Mark of Malice.  
  
“ _I make the deals here,_ ” the Sandman said, in a voice not entirely his own. _“Kill them.”_ _  
__  
_ Harrell ran. He bolted before the Sandman could even finish giving the order. One of the thugs lunged at him, wrapping his arms around him in a bear hug, but Harrell wriggled out of his grasp. He slipped past him, kicked off the wall and bolted down the corridor the way they came.  
  
“Harrell!” Syl called.  
  
The two thugs lunged at them from behind. Together, with a fluid ease and unison that came from a decade of history, Syl and Crane turned to meet them, blades in hand. Syl slapped aside a wrench with her sword and kicked a man headfirst into the low-hanging pipes; Crane darted aside a thrusting shiv and buried her own blade in the man’s gut, twisting the blade and wrenching it out in a spray of gore.  
  
Syl’s opponent cracked open a pipe as he went down. Hissing steam and spattering blood coated the two women, disrupting their disguises. Syl’s glamour and Crane’s holosuit shivered and dissipated, revealing their true selves beneath.  
  
Syl turned, brandishing her sword. The Sandman’s two other thugs stopped in their tracks, wary, staring her down. Crane turned, scowling at the sight of Harrell disappearing down the corridor.  
  
“That little rattlesnake…” she muttered. “He left us!”  
  
“It wasn’t his fault,” Syl chided.  
  
“We need him,” Crane spat. “He knows the way out.”  
  
The Sandman let out a horrid, unearthly shriek. It echoed strangely in the confined space, ringing down the halls. In the distance, other dealers with unholy sigils slithering on their skin answered the call with howls of their own.  
  
Crane swore.  
  
“Go,” Syl urged. “Go, go…!”  
  
They chased Harrell down the winding, claustrophobic corridors, shadows following them in the dark. The sight of the mark of Malice on the Sandman’s cheek had filled Harrell with a terror he couldn’t explain, something deep, dark, ancient, unknowable. He ran, suffused with mortal terror, heedless of Syl and Crane calling his name at his heels, until…  
  
“Harrell!” Crane commanded. “ _Stop right there!_ ”  
  
Crane’s voice, infused with psionic power, pierced the mindless fog of his fear. He actually skidded to a stop, confused, as if having lost his train of thought. But as soon as Syl caught up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, Harrell whirled around, his pistol in his hand.  
  
Syl caught Harrell’s wrist and shoved. He fired into the ceiling, right over her shoulder, the shot in the enclosed space deafeningly loud.  
  
Syl didn’t flinch.  
  
“Don’t point that in my face,” she said sternly. She plucked the pistol out of his hands, ejected the magazine, and examined the rounds.  
  
“What’s he chambered for?” Crane asked mildly.  
  
“.38,” Syl replied. “Too small for yours.”  
  
“Damn.”  
  
“They’re gonna kill us,” Harrell babbled. “They’re gonna kill us, the whole city, the whole world, the desert’s gonna swallow us up and we’ll just be ash and dust and sand in the sandstorm--”  
  
“ _Calm down,_ ” Crane said, taking Harrell by the shoulder. She grit her teeth as his fear spilled over into her psyche. She exhaled, releasing it into the air.  
  
Harrell swallowed hard, his eyes flitting between Syl, Crane, and the corridor looming beyond, echoing with distant footsteps and strange, shrieking shouts.  
  
“...We’re going to die here,” Harrell said quietly. “We’ll lie here forever. Until sand swallows all.”  
  
“We’re _not_ going to die here,” Syl said sharply. “We’re going to get out of these tunnels. We’re going to link up with the rest of our team, and we are going to blow this conspiracy wide open, but before we can do that, Harrell, we need you to guide us out.”  
  
“You have two Order operatives guarding your back,” Crane urged. “You _know_ the way out. _Concentrate._ ”  
  
The word seemed to echo in Harrell’s mind, silencing the anxious whispers and the howling of the sandstorm above. He took a deep breath, and swallowed hard.  
  
“...Follow me.”  
  
~*~  
  
_“All citizens, return to your homes. A dust warning is in effect. All citizens…”_  
  
They emerged from the blinding, russet twilight, their capes flying in the breeze. Shanti, in the wheat-gold fatigues of Corinth PDF and her favorite fur-lined bomber jacket; Kit, in her synthskin bodysuit and the long, dark coat Syl gave her; and Aabha, in full armor, shining crimson and gold. Aabha led them forward, marching straight up to the Oasis Gate, the crest on her armor gleaming in the ruddy half-light.  
  
“In the name of the Order, open this gate,” Aabha proclaimed.  
  
Sergeant Castor balked at Aabha’s badge, swallowing hard. He cleared his throat.  
  
“I… I’m sorry, Agent. But it’s long after curfew, and the dust warning--”  
  
“I’m aware,” Aabha said levelly. “But this is a matter of planar security. Please open this gate.”  
  
Castor grit his teeth. “There is no entry into the Oasis at this time. Colonel’s orders.”  
  
There was a crackle of lightning high above. Above, the Shield was flickering and sparking, arcs of electricity bursting out from the base of the energized dome. There was a deep, throaty rumble in the distance, like rolling thunder, and the timbre of the sandstorm changed-- becoming deeper, ominously deeper. The team exchanged glances.  
  
“...Please get to safety,” Castor said meekly. “I’m sorry, Agent.”  
  
“Yeah,” Aabha murmured, “me, too.”  
  
Kit threw her hand forward. Castor yelped as a gust of magical wind blasted him aside. An instant later, Shanti keyed a command inside her gloves and the Gate shivered, flickering, warning sigils lighting up along the archway.  
  
They pushed through the sealed Gate as if it were made of gelatin, Shanti’s localized EMP weakening the field integrity just enough for them to get through. Castor reflexively called out, drawing his rifle up to his cheek, before realizing how pointless a gesture that was.  
  
Another boom behind him, like a storm about to break. Castor turned, lifting his head towards the sandstorm gathering over the city, rumbling with power and lit from within by a hellish red light...  
  
~*~  
  
Governor Mavis pounded his fists against his desk in frustration. Colonel Floros watched, impassive, his eyes glinting red in the light. Outside the domed window at the pinnacle of the Shield Pylon, the Oasis was a mask of calm.  
  
“How could this happen? How could this happen…?” Mavis despaired, hunched over his desk. “All our work, undone in a single night…”  
  
“Yes,” Floros agreed mildly. “I’m just as disappointed as you are.”  
  
“We had this under control,” Mavis seethed. “You told me you had this under control!”  
  
“We control this city,” Floros grumbled. “Closed circle. Until the damn Order decided to stick their noses in…”  
  
“Yes,” Mavis muttered, “all because of one bleeding heart. They were supposed to be expendable, Colonel! They were supposed to be people no one, not even the authorities, would miss! That was the deal! That was the Tithe!”  
  
Mavis took a deep breath, and let it out slow. He glanced up, meeting Floros’ eerie red eyes.  
  
“...I want this handled, Colonel. Tonight, you hear me?”  
  
“I hear you,” Floros grunted.  
  
“Calcian’s known for its sandstorms, after all,” Mavis muttered. “Even vaunted Order operatives can disappear out there, if they aren’t careful. Just another sacrifice. Another Tithe.”  
  
~*~  
  
Harrell, Crane and Syl burst out from the city’s sublevels and into the garish white streets of the Oasis, ghouls and Branded snapping at their heels. A geyser of dark magic erupted behind them, the sandstorm’s fell power bleeding into the city’s immaculate heart and staining it red.  
  
“Aabha, lock onto my signal!” Syl called, as she ran, Harrell and Crane breathless at her side. “We’re coming to you, and all hell is behind us!”  
  
A russet cloud billowed out behind them, and shadows leapt through the smoke. They turned another corner, burst into an open plaza--  
  
And saw Aabha waiting, along with Kit, Shanti, and a firing line of Shanti’s drones.  
  
“Guys! Drop!” Kit called.  
  
Syl hooked an arm around Crane’s waist and yanked her down. Harrell dropped with a squeal, his hands over his head.  
  
A gleaming yellow storm flew over their heads and annihilated their pursuers in ten seconds of sustained, concentrated lasfire.  
  
Harrell peeked, warily raising his head. Over his shoulder, the alley they’d come running down had transformed into a warzone. He stared, wide-eyed.  
  
“H-Holy shit…” he muttered. Kit offered him her hand, and he took it. “Thanks.”  
  
Kit hoisted him to his feet. “That’s for making sure my boss and her ex made it out of there okay.”  
  
Kit floored him with a punch.  
  
“And _that’s_ for shooting at my _girlfriend_ , you shit!”  
  
“Kit, enough,” Aabha chided, patting her arm. “I told you, I’m okay. It’s what the armor’s for!”  
  
“Thanks for the help, girls,” Syl said. She nodded to Shanti respectfully. “Chief.”  
  
_You kids take so much looking after_ , Shanti signed, lips curled in a smirk.  
  
“Enough,” Crane said, hoisting Harrell to his feet again and dusting him off. “We have bigger things to worry about. The sand dealers are Branded-- marked servants of Malice. We just got chased through those tunnels by dealers and PDF troopers both. Planetary Defense is either complicit or compromised. We need to move on the colonel and the governor.”  
  
Aabha gazed up at the Shield Pylon looming over the city. She nodded. “I’m with you, ma’am.”  
  
“Aabha, you take point,” Syl ordered. “Chief, cover our approach, please. Kit, can you spare any clips? Nine mil, please.”  
  
“Gotcha,” Kit said, and tossed.  
  
Crane caught the magazines, slipped two into a belt pouch and the third into her pistol. She racked the slide with a click.  
  
“Let’s bust this thing wide open,” Crane growled.  
  
~*~  
  
High above the streets of Shepherd’s Rock, Calcian, in an office a single floor below the highest point in the city, Governor Mavis’ personal assistant, Dani, sat at her desk, nursing a caffeine headache. It was either too late or too early to be stuck here at city hall. She couldn’t tell which. No one could; the sun never set on Calcian, not during the months-long midnight sun.  
  
“Hello there,” someone said.  
  
Dani jumped. She hadn’t heard anyone come in. But suddenly, there was a man standing before her, in an immaculate, dove-gray, three-piece suit.  
  
“H-Hello,” Dani murmured, wary. “...Do you have an appointment?”  
  
“I do, actually,” Maxwell smiled, lifting his cane. “I’ve been _waiting_ for this...”  
  
~*~  
  
“Law enforcement!”  
  
Aabha burst through the door in a spiral of magical fire, the team at her heels--  
  
\--only to find a lone desk and an empty landing.  
  
The governor being missing was one thing. The state of his office was quite another. The entire armaglass dome covering the pinnacle of the Shield Pylon had blown out, leaving the floor nearly ankle-deep in chipped, broken glass.  
  
“Clear!” Aabha called.  
  
“Clear,” the team echoed.  
  
“Holy shit,” Kit blurted out. “What the hell happened up here?”  
  
“Crane, what’s her status?” Syl said into her comm.  
  
_“She’s alive,”_ Crane answered from the floor below, checking over the governor’s secretary. _“She’s in a magically-induced slumber. I can’t seem to break it.”_ _  
__  
_ “At least she isn’t going anywhere…” Syl muttered. She walked up to the edge of the shattered office, peering down over the edge. Shanti, crouching near the edge, looked up at her and shook her head.  
  
_It’s a long way down_ , she signed gravely.  
  
“So much for Governor Mavis,” Kit said blithely.  
  
“Let’s not jump to conclusions before we find a body,” Syl said.  
  
Harrell trailed behind the team, taking in the view of the governor’s ruined office and the streets of Shepherd’s Rock sprawling out below. He whistled.  
  
“So,” Harrell muttered, “this is the view from the best seat in the house…”  
  
Everyone’s comms chirped at once. A voice broke through, obscured by squealing static and white noise.  
  
_“Sparrow to away team, Sparrow to away team, what is your status? Over.”_ _  
__  
_ “The governor and the colonel are both MIA,” Syl replied. “We’re on top of the Shield Pylon right now. The governor’s office is a wreck-- like a bomb went off. What's it like on your end?”  
  
_“It’s a madhouse out here,”_ Morgan said. _“The sandstorm is raging out of control, and there are ghouls wreaking havoc in the streets.”_  
  
“Defend the city, Morgan,” Syl said. “We’ll see if we can track down the governor. I have a bad feeling that I know where to look next…”  
  
_“Understood,”_ Morgan said. _“Sparrow, ou--”_  
  
_“Standby, Sparrow,”_ Crane cut in. _“Are you able to achieve a teleport lock on my badge? I have someone here for medevac-- she’s under a powerful sleep spell and I need Jaki to look her over.”_  
  
_“Understood.”_  
  
Crane fixed her badge to Dani’s blazer. Morgan called out the teleport lock, and she disappeared in a flare of brilliant blue light. A few moments later, Crane emerged on the top level, glass crunching underfoot, rejoining the rest of the team.  
  
“That poor woman’s going to sleep right through what looks like the end of the world,” Crane mused.  
  
“Maybe that’s for the best,” Aabha said gently.  
  
A sudden tremor rumbled through the Shield Pylon. The team fought to keep their footing, Shanti grabbing a hovering drone to stop herself from toppling over the edge. The indicator lights running up the side of the Shield Pylon blinked yellow. There was an awful, distant metal clunking, and the Shield Pylon’s warning lights settled on a steady red.  
  
“I’m guessing that’s not a good sign,” Kit said.  
  
A sharp bang in the distance, like crashing thunder. The Oasis Gate, looming on the horizon, flashed and smoked. The relay track lining the top of the gate, meant to serve as the anchor for the dome-shaped barrier projected by the Shield Pylon, was flickering ominously. Arcs of energy crackled along the Shield itself. Gaps appeared in the projection, ragged tears that bled light and shone like the molten edges of a durasteel door after a plasma beam’s punched through. Ruddy red smoke began clawing its way into the city, staining and blooming throughout the Oasis like blood in water…  
  
Aabha gazed out across the horizon, her cape and coattails billowing in the wind.  
  
“The Shield has been breached,” she murmured.  
  
Syl furrowed her brow. She stepped forward, studying the shadows moving in the smoke. Crane sidled up beside her, shooting her a curious, concerned look. Syl crossed her arms, tapping at her chin.  
  
“...No,” she said at last. She glowered at the Oasis Gate on the horizon, the scarred, luminous Shield above it, and the horde of ghouls spilling into the city.  
  
“What if…” Syl began, chewing her lip. “What if the Shield _is_ the Breach?”  
  
Aabha stared at her, aghast. “Then-- Then the construction project a month ago, the sandstorms getting worse, the disappearances in the Quarter--”  
  
“Enough,” Syl said firmly. “Enough guessing. Junior Puri?”  
  
Aabha stood up straight. “Yes, ma’am!”  
  
“Prepare the team for battle,” Syl said, resolute. “It’s time we got to the bottom of this.”  
  
~*~  
  
Chaos reigned on the streets of Shepherd’s Rock, even in the heart of the city, once thought untouchable. The sandstorm engulfed everything, filling the sky with that ruddy, murky twilight. Sound carried strangely within the dust cloud, echoing, howling. Panicked shouting, cries of pain and fear, rang out within the cloud staining the city red.  
  
The team took the elevator down from Governor Mavis’ office at the peak of the Shield Pylon, a single transparent sheet of plasteel between them and the maelstrom outside. But when Syl said they were getting to the bottom of this, she meant it; with Kit taking point and an anxious Harrell guiding their path, the team slipped underground, into the tunnels beneath the Shield.  
  
There, the howling sandstorm grew silent, and an eerie silence took hold. The team carefully picked their way through the tunnels, step by step, the tense quiet only punctuated by the rustling of their clothes and the click of their weapons held at the ready.  
  
Kit took point, her pistol in one hand, dagger in the other. She moved just ahead of the group, checking doors, corners, forks in the road. Her eyes glinted crimson in the light, superhuman vision cutting through the gloom.  
  
Behind her followed a nervous Harrell, flanked by Syl and Crane, both with their sidearms drawn. Aabha brought up the rear, alongside Shanti and her array of hoverdrones, trailing behind her like ducklings.  
  
Shanti walked backwards, her long rifle braced at her shoulder and covering the team’s backs. Her transcriber drone floated at her shoulder, projecting a hololithic text box at head height. She was typing using the implants in her fingertips, done so subtly it was like she was just adjusting her grip on her rifle.  
  
_There were cellars like this on my homeworld, Corinth,_ Shanti typed. _Corinth was an agri-world. Our primary export was grain. But that meant lots of wide open fields, rife with tornadoes._  
  
_There was this place called the Corinth Arcology. It started out as just an emergency tornado shelter. But it grew into a huge network of tunnels, cellars, supply depots… when Malice came to the planet, we took shelter in the arcology._ _  
__  
__Formal resistance against the Enemy ended after only three weeks. But informal resistance persisted for every day until the Order finally came to liberate us. Every day for the better part of two years._  
  
“Two years under Malefic occupation…” Aabha mused, shaking her head. “I can’t even imagine what that must have been like.”  
  
_That won’t happen to Calcian. Not today._ Shanti typed. _It’s strange, seeing a planet being poisoned by Malice. I’m just glad we managed to catch it early._ _  
__  
_ “Early?” Aabha asked, signing as she spoke. “A dozen people disappeared before we even got here. Now the storm’s out of control and there are ghouls running amok. Who knows how many people have gotten hurt already? If this is us stopping the Enemy early… then I don’t want to see what it’s like when they win.”  
  
_No._ Shanti agreed. _You don’t._  
  
“Look at this place,” Kit muttered up ahead, glancing scornfully up at the grimy, dust-caked walls. “It’s amazing how different this city looks once you find the real one underneath.”  
  
“I wouldn’t say it looks that different,” Harrell shrugged. “It’s just all the damn sandstorms. When the dust is up, nobody can see a thing.”  
  
“How much further is it?” Syl asked.  
  
“Not far,” Harrell said. “The generator room should be right through--”  
  
Kit stopped short. Harrell squeaked as he bumped into her back, then recoiled as floodlights bathed the tunnel in eye-searing white light. In contrast to the lone trooper and the simple road barricade that had blocked their way under the Shield previously, there was now a wall of metal and muscle barring the team’s path.  
  
A lone figure stepped forward from the line, a giant of a man rendered a mere silhouette by the garish, glaring floodlamps behind him.  
  
“You don’t belong here,” Colonel Floros growled.  
  
~*~  
  
“Colonel Floros, please confirm that last order!” Sergeant Castor yelled into his comm.  
  
_“You heard me. All units: hold that Gate at all costs. No one gets through. And I mean no one.”_  
  
“Sir--” Castor winced, his comm spitting static. He stared out at the crowd gathering on the approach to the Oasis Gate, growing by the minute. He swallowed hard.  
  
“You can’t just leave us out here!” cried a haggard voice in the crowd.  
  
“Those things are still out there!” cried someone else.  
  
Castor took a deep breath and sighed. He looked up, to the Shield flickering and shorting out, huge arcs of crimson lightning flashing out from the relays. It was useless as a defense against the sandstorm-- the storm was already getting through. But the Oasis Gate structure itself was still intact…  
  
“Open the gate.”  
  
A fellow trooper turned, gawking. “Sir?”  
  
Castor blinked. He hadn’t even realized he’d spoken, but now…  
  
Castor grit his teeth. He keyed in his comm, to anyone who could still hear him.  
  
“Open the gate!” he bellowed. “Everyone get inside!”  
  
The crowd burst through the instant the shutters came up, placing the bulk of the Oasis Gate between themselves and the encroaching swarm. Castor stared down his fellow trooper, his headset pulsing with voices, PDF troopers questioning their orders, demanding clarification.  
  
“Sir,” the trooper began, trembling. “Colonel’s orders--”  
  
A scream snapped their heads back towards the Quarter. A wave of panic swept through the rear ranks of the crowd as they started pushing forward with more vigor, shoving their way through to the front.  
  
“They’re coming!” they cried. “They’re coming!”  
  
Shadows emerged from the gloom, shrieking and baying like starving wolves. They snarled, ghostfire in their eyes. The soldiers manning the Gate alongside Castor swore and recoiled-- but Castor held up a fist, and brought them in line. He shouldered his rifle, aiming above the heads of the crowd fleeing for safety and at the swarm of ghouls bounding towards them from behind.  
  
“All units! You heard the Colonel!” Castor bellowed. “Hold this line at all costs! Nothing gets past the Gate!”  
  
~*~  
  
“Colonel Floros! Calcian Planetary Defense!” Aabha shouted, fighting to be heard. “You will lay down your weapons and submit to the authority of the Order and the Sol Systems Alliance, or we _will_ respond with all necessary force!”  
  
“Babe! _Babe!_ ” Kit yelled over the cacophonous barrage “I think we’re _well_ past that!”  
  
Aabha swore, crouching behind a concrete pillar that was rapidly vanishing into dust under sustained lasfire. Her chakrams spun into being at her fingertips, twin wheels of fire solidifying into steel in her hands. She peeked out of cover and recoiled before she could take a shot, chased back by the sharp crack of lasfire, chipped concrete, and the harsh brilliance of the floodlights haloing their opposition.  
  
Aabha winced, reaching beside her and shoving a hapless Harrell further into cover.  
  
“Stay down!” Aabha called. Lasfire streaked their way and painted the garish light orange and green.  
  
“Damn it,” Crane muttered, clutching her pistol. “We’re a _little_ outgunned.”  
  
“But not outmatched,” Syl said, resolute. “Everyone! Goggles on! Switch to thermal imaging!”  
  
Crane pulled on her goggles and flicked through the settings at her temple, settling on thermal imaging. The intense heat of so many laser weapons in a confined space turned the room into a haze of yellow and red-- but it was still better than the blinding white of the PDF floodlamps at the platoon’s back.  
  
Crane aimed her pistol with both hands, picking her shots carefully. Ghouls, her sidearm could handle, but it wasn’t often she faced down military-grade armor. She hunted for soft spots, seams, knees, armpits, visors, throats. Beside her, she could see Shanti having the same problem-- an Aegis Company trooper took a burst from Shanti’s drones hard enough to knock him off his feet, but then he got back up and returned fire, looking no worse for wear than a trio of scorch marks on his chestplate.  
  
Shanti gave her an irritated glance. Crane nodded her sympathy.  
  
“Yeah, I hear you…” Crane muttered. “Why does the PDF for a _desert planet_ wear such heavy armor…?”  
  
_You’d sink into the sand,_ Shanti signed, scornful.  
  
Shanti adjusted her grip on her rifle, keying a command to her drones. They stopped raking fire across the enemy line and instead waited for her signal, silently syncing to the smart link in Shanti’s own rifle scope.  
  
Shanti took her shot. Her round punched into a trooper’s chestplate, gouging into the ceramite but not quite piercing through. A split second later, all eight of her drones fired at that same spot-- and blew the trooper’s torso apart in a flash of superheated gore.  
  
The tone of the firefight changed. Shanti methodically dropped two more troopers with her synced drones, denting the storm of lasfire coming their way. Troopers, previously so confident in their armor they’d foregone taking cover, now scrambled to reposition.  
  
“ ** _Out!_** ” Crane bellowed. Her psionic-infused voice shivered the air, stopping the enemy troopers in their tracks. For a few, precious moments, they stopped firing, bewildered, and rose out of cover.  
  
They died. A trooper fell, his helmet trailing blood spray and chipped glass. Another, shot through the throat. Another, clipped in the knee to send him stumbling, another round finding the gap between his pauldron and his chestplate. One trooper found his wits enough to duck under a flying chakram, only for it to slice open the back of his neck on its way back to Aabha’s hands.  
  
And in these dizzying, frenetic moments, three more troopers fell to Shanti’s methodical, veteran eye, one after the other. One. Reload. Two. Reload. Three.  
  
A thump, and a short, whistling hiss.  
  
Shanti’s perch exploded into powdered concrete, sending her scrambling for cover. Another thump, and a grenade whistled over her head and exploded down the hall. A third, and Shanti hit the ground hard, her rifle skittering across the concrete.  
  
“Chief!” Aabha cried.  
  
Shanti coughed, and let Crane pull her behind a low stone wall. Another thump, and a grenade came whistling their way.  
  
Crane glared, throwing her hand forward. The grenade hit a wall of invisible kinetic force and detonated prematurely, showering the team with ash and grit.  
  
Floros emerged from the smoke, levelling a rotary grenade launcher at the team, the drum magazine clunking as it cycled a new round into place.  
  
Crane gestured just as Floros pulled the trigger. His next grenade exploded before it could even clear the barrel, detonating the grenade launcher in his armored grip.  
  
Floros growled, hurling the ruined weapon aside. He hefted another onto his hip, bringing a new weapon to bear-- a belt-fed heavy autocannon.  
  
The mighty weapon roared in his hands, somehow steady despite the lack of a tripod, no proper mounting, and its tremendous recoil. Kit cried out in alarm as sustained fire sawed a concrete column in half, Shanti throwing herself flat as her drones were caught in the barrage and blasted into shorting circuitry and shattered plasteel shells.  
  
Syl swore. She pulled up the sleeve on her jacket and exposed her bracer. Her shield materialized in a gleam of emerald light, called out from where it had been collapsed into her armguard. She holstered her pistol and drew her sword, meeting Aabha and Kit’s eyes across the way.  
  
“Let’s end this,” Syl growled. “Girls. With me.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am!”  
  
Syl raised her sword in salute, before swiping it to the side. A row of illusory doppelgangers fanned out beside her like a hand of cards. Syl charged, shield raised, her squad of phantasms at her flanks.  
  
Floros swept his aim, raking autocannon fire across the advancing knights. Decoys crumpled into shining green mist as they fell, each illusion drawing Floros’ fire away for precious fractions of a second.  
  
Aabha’s chakrams flew around Syl from behind, criss-crossing in front of Floros in a tight, scissoring cut-- one blade cutting the autocannon’s strap from his shoulder, the other severing its ammunition belt in a spray of loose rounds.  
  
They broke off, Syl going left while Kit, kept safe in her shadow, went right. They surged forward, haloed in leaf-green and gold. Their blades flashed--  
  
Floros caught their wrists, stopping them in their tracks. Their blades bit into his pauldrons, Syl’s crackling with blue lightning, Kit’s aglow with golden-white fire. They gouged messy, molten cuts into Floros’ shoulders, but stopped short of taking his head. He growled, his helmet distorting his voice into something ancient, inhuman…  
  
_“We are infinite,”_ Floros rumbled. _“We are_ ** _unending_** _.”_  
  
He threw Syl and Kit aside, leaving their blades lodged in his armor. Aabha rose to meet him, her amber eyes flashing red.  
  
A plume of fire cascaded from Aabha’s latticed fingertips and slammed into the colonel, forcing him back against the wall, setting his fur mantle ablaze. He shrieked in pain, his helmet smouldering and glowing red-hot. He snarled like an animal, clawing at his helmet seals. He ripped off his helm and threw it aside, his face weeping blood, burns, and a dark mark that swam like ink beneath his cheek.  
  
“ _We serve the storm!_ ” Floros cried, eyes blazing crimson. _“Until sand--”_  
  
A shot nailed Floros right between the eyes and painted the wall with his blood.  
  
Aabha turned to see Harrell, clutching his own pistol in shaking hands. He grit his teeth and shot Floros again, and again, pumping round after round into the colonel’s skull until his pistol clicked empty and Floros’ face was a shapeless knot of gore.  
  
Harrell lowered his pistol, and took a shuddering breath.  
  
“...Until sand swallows all,” Harrell said, and spat in the dust at Floros’ feet.  
  
~*~  
  
The team took a moment to catch their breath. They dusted themselves off, checked themselves for injuries, took whatever ammo was worth taking from the bodies of the colonel and his personal squad.  
  
The Shield Pylon’s underground generator room loomed just ahead.  
  
Maxwell was already waiting for them.  
  
“Doc?” Harrell wondered.  
  
“Hello, Agents,” Maxwell turned, smiling. “Hello, kiddo. Enjoying the weather, are we?”  
  
Maxwell slapped his cane against his palm, before lifting it up and gesturing to the huge, vaulted roof of the generator room. Even underground, even under the huge structure of the Shield Pylon, the sandstorm, however faint, could still be heard.  
  
“Nature,” Maxwell said. “The great equalizer. Rich and poor alike, at the mercy of the elements. Only… that’s not quite true, is it? The rich get a nice cozy force field to cower behind, an illusion of paradise to soothe them to bed. And the poor are where they’ve always been-- out on the fringe, withering away.”  
  
Maxwell smiled.  
  
“Now, Agents, I’ve no doubt that if you had more time and more freedom to investigate this city at your leisure, you would have eventually come to the same conclusion I had. However, I am a professor. A scholar at heart. And if you’d grant me this little indulgence, allow me to paint you a picture.  
  
“Imagine Malice. The cosmic terror, the primal deity, Enemy of all life. Imagine Seth, his servant, the Aspect of Decay. Heralded by an agitation of earth, such as an earthquake, or a sandstorm. Desert planets are particularly vulnerable to his influence.  
  
“Now, picture Governor Henry Mavis. King of the castle, with the finest view in the entire city. Imagine Malice taking root in his heart, filling him with the fear of inevitability. Death comes for all things. It is only a matter of time. So, blinded by the promise of immortality, he makes a deal: a sacrifice. A Tithe.  
  
“Seth and his servants may claim as many of his people as he wishes. Seth’s influence bled into this plane via the Shield ‘upgrade’ and the spread of his toxic black sand. He may Brand the people as servants, spread his poisons throughout the populace, bolster his ranks with ghouls once the addicted succumb. Every ‘beachhead’ addicted to black sand becomes Seth’s literal beachhead into this world-- an ingress point. A Breach unto themselves. And all the governor asks in return is for himself, and the Oasis, to be spared.”  
  
“That’s monstrous!” Aabha cried.  
  
“No doubt,” Maxwell chuckled. “But hardly surprising. Henry Mavis sold out his city, his people, all to preserve his own prosperity. He offered up the wretches of his society to the jaws of Decay. All because he honestly, sincerely believed that no one would miss them. That no one would come looking.”  
  
“But someone did,” Kit said. “When a PDF officer noticed the first people disappearing, suspecting black sand overdose, they reported it. That’s how we got involved.”  
  
“Yes, indeed,” Maxwell said. “Sergeant Bruno Castor, Planetary Defense. Of course, this was right before the PDF were recalled from the Quarter and dedicated solely to protecting the Oasis Gate. And even he knew to submit his report anonymously, as if he already suspected his superiors could not be trusted. Which brings me to tonight, and a certain… conversation… I had with the governor himself.”  
  
“I knew that sleep spell felt familiar…”  
  
Crane raised her pistol with a click.  
  
“Dr. Brennan Maxwell,” Crane announced. “I’m arresting you under suspicion of the murder of Henry Mavis.”  
  
“‘Suspect’ nothing,” Maxwell scoffed. “I killed Henry Mavis. In truth, karma killed Henry Mavis. I only wielded the knife.” He raised his cane. “So to speak.”  
  
“You killed him?” Aabha gasped. “Why?”  
  
“He made a deal with the Devil, child,” Maxwell said. “And the Devil always gets his due.”  
  
“But if what you’re saying is true, then Governor Mavis had a pact with the Aspect of Decay,” Syl said sharply. “You’re a sorcerer! You should have known that killing him would break the pact. Before, Seth was happy to turn ghouls one addict at a time. Now what’s stopping him from just taking the entire city?”  
  
Maxwell chuckled. “What, indeed...”  
  
“You would let this city fall to Malice?!” Aabha hissed. “You would sacrifice all these people--”  
  
“Yes,” Maxwell said, with shocking conviction. “I would. Henry Mavis thought this city’s poor were expendable. I think the city’s rich are no more valuable. I say, let Decay have them all, if that is the price we must pay to witness, firsthand, the Enemy at work.”  
  
_That’s a lot of bodies to feed your grand experiment,_ Shanti signed venomously.  
  
“I told you, Agent Crane, I am a scholar at heart,” Maxwell said, adamant. “I’m playing the long game, here. To fight the Enemy, we must _know_ the Enemy. What we learn here today could be the key to saving countless other worlds from Decay’s clutches. What’s the price of one city compared to a world? Isn’t that a worthy tithe? Isn’t that a worthy sacrifice?”  
  
“ _Their_ lives aren’t _yours_ to bargain,” Aabha snapped.  
  
Maxwell tsked, shaking his head.  
  
“Oh, child… so short-sighted. As the Order has always been. You truly think you can save everyone? There is no victory without sacrifice! But you! You would save one life now even if it meant losing countless more in the future!”  
  
“With these hands, we _make_ the future!” Aabha’s eyes flashed. “You’re wrong, Dr. Maxwell. We will save this city, and it will be because we _care_. Not because we _did the math._ ”  
  
Maxwell sighed, meeting Aabha’s eyes.  
  
“...You should harden that heart child. It’ll last longer that way.”  
  
“You’re wrong,” Aabha said.  
  
Maxwell shrugged.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
Maxwell struck his cane against the ground. He vanished, Crane’s shot passing through him like smoke. She swore, darting forward through the cloud of black smoke and stopping herself on a balcony rail.  
  
What she saw took her breath away.  
  
Before her, in the cavernous gloom of the vaulted cellar beneath the Shield Pylon, the generator sat, a huge, coiling mass of pipes and machinery that looked almost like a snake eating its tail. Branded Sandmen walked to a fro, scraping dust from the overhanging pipes.  
  
But in astral space, the generator room looked vastly different. In astral space, the city looked like a silhouette devoid of color, draining away into a point in the heart of the city, like black sand through an hourglass. Here, she could see what those auras were draining into-- the daemon maw that sat, squat and hulking in the generator room beneath the Shield Pylon, invisible in realspace. A Devourer, a great black serpent, servant of Seth, the Sandstorm.  
  
The great beast sat coiled up in itself, fat and gorging itself on the psychic essence of the city, eating away at stamina, at courage, poisoning the people with lethargy and paranoia. And every so often, the great serpent would shed its skin. The Sandmen prowled along its flanks, scraping at the discarded skin with claws and knives, grinding it into powder. The source of the black sand.  
  
Crane took a step back, revolted. Syl took her by the shoulders and held her steady. Aabha stared, a hand over her mouth. Shanti and Harrell could not see in astral space, but they could feel the toxic aura of the daemon filling the room, could see the Sandmen scraping dust from the pipes and bagging them for distribution.  
  
A tremor pulsed through the room, and as one, the Sandmen turned to look at the intruders. They gurgled and hissed, making no pretenses at being human. They made for the group, brandishing knives and claws, scuttling like lizards up the pipes.  
  
Shanti dropped a pack at her feet with a bang. The team glanced at her. She nudged the pack with her foot, filled to bursting with explosive charges she’d taken from the colonel and his men.  
  
_Give me two minutes,_ she signed, _and I’ll bring this whole goddamn building down._ _  
__  
_ “Two minutes,” Syl echoed, drawing her sword. “Start counting.”  
  
~*~  
  
City hall imploded.  
  
Shanti’s demolition charges set off something below the Shield Pylon, some catastrophic arcane reaction. The explosion obliterated the generator room and fractured the Shield Pylon above. It crumbled into the new crater at the heart of the city, trailing ghostly violet fire and smoking debris. A cloud of black smoke rose up from the ruins, lit from within by a hellish red light.  
  
Then, it was gone, and the sandstorm along with it.  
  
Comms reopened, freed from the sandstorm’s choking static. From the Sparrow's control room, Morgan contacted Commander Vega with news of the black sand, the Breach, and the true scope of the secret beneath Calcian's surface.  
  
By morning, a flotilla of Order relief vessels arrived in Calcian’s orbit to begin cleanup operations. Aegis Company, Calcian Planetary Defense, was suspended from active duty pending a full investigation into their ranks. A number of Order assets stepped in to fill the gap, and to aid in the city's reconstruction.  
  
The collapsing Shield Pylon damaged several of the city’s key utilities and also left hundreds of people homeless. Those displaced by the disaster took refuge in the Quarter, most begrudgingly, others less so. The disparity between the city’s rich and poor shifted and blurred. Possibly for the better, but it was too early to say.  
  
Poverty was not something the Order could solve in a day. But the sandstorm had cleared. The Shield was down. The Gates were open.  
  
Just another day’s work. Another step forward.  
  
The crew of the Sparrow spent a week on Calcian, doing what they could to aid the relief effort. But soon enough, new orders came in, and Robyn announced it was time to pack up and get moving.  
  
“Where are we headed?” Lila asked.  
  
“The next mission,” Crane replied, with a shrug and a smile. “Always the next mission.”  
  
They were assembled in the shade at the base of the Sparrow’s lowered cargo ramp. Without the sandstorm blotting out the sun, Shepherd’s Rock practically glowed in the light. Aabha, Kit, Lily, and Lila were all sprawled out on cargo crates. They were supposedly packing up and getting ready to leave the planet, with Crane overseeing the final check of the Sparrow’s inventory.  
  
Once again, they were procrastinating and having a cuddle.  
  
“If only you could solve poverty everywhere by just blowing up town hall,” Kit said dryly.  
  
“We didn’t ‘solve poverty’, Kit,” Aabha chided.  
  
“We stopped a dark god from eating the city,” Kit shrugged. “That’s something, right?”  
  
“I wish we’d known earlier,” Aabha mused, leaning her chin on her hands. “I wish it hadn’t come to this. Who knows how long it’ll take to rebuild, how many people we could have saved...”  
  
“Does it matter?” Kit asked.  
  
Aabha looked at her. “Of course it matters.”  
  
“Don’t get hung up on the what-ifs,” Lily said, clapping Aabha on the shoulder. “A win is a win, right?”  
  
“Save one life, save the world,” Lila murmured, with a gentle smile.  
  
“Agents!”  
  
They looked up. Harrell and Serafine were coming up the field, radiant in the sunlight. They ducked gratefully under the shade of the Sparrow, wiping their arms across their brows.  
  
“Geez,” Harrell muttered. “First the sandstorms, then the sun… can’t see a thing out there.”  
  
“Mister Harrell, Miss Crespo,” Crane said, stepping forward and nodding to them in turn. “What can I do for you two?”  
  
“Well, we heard you guys were leaving,” Harrell said. “We just wanted to say… thanks. Thanks for saving the city, and uh. Well. Thanks for saving me, too.”  
  
Harrell sheepishly scratched his head.  
  
“You saved my life, in those tunnels. I got scared and I ran. Wasn’t thinking straight. Wouldn’t have made it out if you and your girl hadn’t come back for me, so. Thank you.”  
  
Crane bowed her head. “Just doing our duty, sir.”  
  
“C’mon, don’t gimme that,” Harrell protested. “I’m being serious here. You saved my life. It ain’t an easy one, here on this rock, but it’s a life, and you gave it to me. Thank you.”  
  
Harrell offered his hand, and Crane gave him a firm shake.  
  
“Do good with it,” Crane said quietly.  
  
Harrell nodded. “...I will.”  
  
Serafine stepped forward. She silently offered her hand.  
  
Crane exhaled as she took it. Serafine met her eyes.  
  
_You’re like me,_ Serafine sent.  
  
_Yes,_ Crane replied. _Lila told me about you._  
  
“Really?” Serafine blurted out, out loud. She cleared her throat, continuing mentally. _W-What did she say?_ _  
__  
_ “You can ask her yourself, you know,” Crane teased, chuckling.  
  
Crane reached for the Order crest on the lapels of her suit jacket. She took one of the three diamonds and touched it to the central orb. It shone briefly. She held the little translucent pane of red plasteel out on her palm. A little hololithic bust of Crane appeared above the chip, along with coded identifiers and credentials.  
  
“The Order has an Academy on Providence, where mages can get certified and registered. They can teach you how to use your gift. They can also train you to be one of us-- though it is by no means mandatory. If you’re interested, present that data chip to any of the Order Agents working cleanup in the city, and tell them to give me a call. Sound good?”  
  
Serafine nodded. “...I’ll think about it. Thank you, Agent Crane.”  
  
_Take care,_ Crane sent, and winked.  
  
“Hey!” Harrell called. “I’m sorry I got antsy and shot you that one time!”  
  
“No problem! We’re good!” Aabha chirped.  
  
“ _Are_ we?” Kit asked, baffled.  
  
Harrell grinned. He waved, and ushered Serafine away.  
  
“Wait!”  
  
The girls watched, bemused, as Lila ran up to Serafine. Harrell raised an eyebrow, before nudging an elbow into Serafine’s and telling her he’d go on ahead.  
  
They talked for awhile, Serafine in the brilliant sunlight, Lila in the shade. Then, Lila came back to the boarding ramp with a skip in her step, giddily hugging her comm to her chest.  
  
Lily cleared her throat. Lila looked up, gazing blankly at the trio of smug smiles waiting for her.  
  
“What?” Lila shrugged. “I wanted to give Sera my number.”  
  
The girls cooed, laughing.  
  
“Oh, so she’s _‘Sera’_ now…” Kit teased.  
  
“Typical,” Aabha said, in faux indignation. “While we’re on a case, working, Lila’s over here _working_.”  
  
“Now, don’t make fun of Lila,” Lily teased. “She literally hasn’t made any other friends before, so--”  
  
“Shut up! Shut _up_!” Lila squealed, mortified, thumping Lily on the head.  
  
“--so, y’know, it’s her first time!”  
  
The girls burst into peals of laughter, some of it teasing, some of it outraged. Crane shook her head with a weary fondness, scooping up a dataslate off of a crate.  
  
“Come on, girls,” Crane said smiling. “We’re supposed to be packing. Let’s get to it!”  
  
Crane ushered the girls inside, along with the rest of their cargo. That night, the Sparrow lit its drives and rose above the windblown dunes of Calcian.  
  
Even in the middle of the night, the city, unobscured by the sandstorm, shone like clay and alabaster. Red, white, and gold.  
  
The sun was shining. The world kept turning.  
  
The Sparrow spread its wings and flew into the light.  
  
~*~


End file.
